Love and Rage 6.4 (1995 Aug-Sep)

$1

LOVE ezln

RAGE

A REVOLUTIONARY
ANARCHIST NEWSPAPER

Mumia

Oklahoma

Volume 6 , Number 4 Aug/Sept 1995

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Centro de Documenta^ao e Apoio a Pesquisa

Faculdade de Cidncias e Letras de Assis

LOVE AND RAGE A REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHIST NEWSPAPER AUG/SEPT 1995

Free Mumia—By Any Means Necessary

True justice requires more than a stay
of execution-it requires a complete dis¬
missal of this clearly political persecution!
It requires more: it requires the committed
mobilization of our communities to resist a
system that is more repressive than South
Africa's—to abolish this racist death penal¬
ty! It requires freedom—for all MOVE polit¬
ical prisoners, and all political prisoners of
whatever persuasion! Now! It requires a
continuing revolution—to beat back the
forces of the neo-apartheid state. Organize!
Mobilize!"

—Mumia Abu-Jamal, July 12, 1995

BY THE Love and Rage
Prison ABoimoN Working Group

M umia Abu-Jamal is an articulate rev-
olutionaiy journalist. He is also a
political prisoner sitting on
Pennsylvania’s death row with the clock
ticking. Unless something drastic happens,
the state of Pennsylvania will put him to
death at 10:00 p.m. on August 17, 1995. Our
work is cut out for us—we need to build a
movement to make something drastic hap¬
pen to prevent the execution. The question
is— what do we need to make happen? What
can we do that will cause the state to recon¬
sider its options and spare Mumia’s life?

We believe that the people most affected
by an issue should be the ones to decide.

Therefore, in this campaign, we think it’s
important to take guidance from Mumia
himself, from the MOVE Organization, and
from Concerned Friends Et Family of
Mumia Abu-Jamal. Mumia, and spokes-
people for the MOVE Organization are
always clear that we need to build a move¬
ment not just to free Mumia, but to destroy
this whole authoritarian system.

As anarchists, we don’t trust or rely on
the state to bring justice. We believe that
the legal process is highly political, which
Mumia’s case itself demonstrates. This is
not to say that no justice can be won in the
courts for Mumia. We believe the current
legal effort for a new trial is very important
and should be supported. The legal cam¬
paign can actually help build public opin¬
ion against the “criminal justice” system,
by bringing to light the kinds of dirty,

(Continued to page 11)

Don’t Mi^ the Prison
Working Group’s Other
' Draft Statement on Mtmiia
' on page 17

The Zapatistas Speak Out: Ask for an International Dialogue

June of 1995

TO THE PEOPLE OF MEXICO;

TO THE PEOPLES AND
GOVERNMENTS OF THE WORLD:

TO THE NATIONAL AND
INTERNATIONAL PRESS;

BROTHERS [and Sisters],

A year ago in the month of June of 1994,
we responded NO to the government pro¬
posal for the signing of a fake peace. A
year ago, the supreme government after
responding to our demands for democracy,
liberty and justice for all Mexicanos, with a
stack of papers, with the offering of “gener¬
ous” alms and with the arrogance which
took the country to the worst crisis in its
history, received the dignified voice of the
Zapatistas, the “NO” which indicated we
were not willing to exchange our dignity
for money and promises.

A year ago the Zapatista Army of
National Liberation took the initiative of
speaking to the Mexican Nation to demand
a national dialogue with all the people,
groups and organizations who found com¬
mon cause in the struggle for democracy,
liberty and justice.

Acknowledging that a great social force
had manifested itself in the beginning of

the year 1994, first to stop the war and next
to propel a dialogue, the EZLN acknowl¬
edges the power and voice of that social
force, civil and peaceful, and called it to
dialogue in order to seek and raise a ban¬
ner, the national banner, and to struggle
together for a transition to democracy in
Mexico. This call we made in our “SECOND
DECLARATION OF THE LACANDON JUN¬
GLE” and we called this first encounter of
the national dialogue: “THE NATIONAL
DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION”

Two months later, the aspirations of ample
sectors of the country to achieve the peaceful
transition to democracy led to the birth, on
the 8th of August of 1994 and in rebel terri¬
tory against the bad government, of the
NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION.

In the Convention different organized
efforts converged, citizens’ groups, intellec¬
tuals and honest artists, political organiza¬
tions of the center and the left, and a great
number of citizens without a party. We rec¬
ognized one another before a common
enemy, the State-Party system, and in the
call of the faceless men and women of the
EZLN, and agreed on the demand for
democracy, liberty and justice for all
Mexicanos. We agreed, but we did not
unite. The lack of a program and a plan of
common action, allowed the electoral hori¬
zon to be converted in an obstacle for the

development of the NATIONAL DEMOCRA¬
TIC CONVENTION.

The dialogue among different forces was
and has been difficult. There have been
many obstacles and points of stagnation. But
the fundamental platform of the NATIONAL
DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION continues to be
viable; the peaceful civil struggle against the
party system of the State.

Once the electoral fraud of August 21st
was past and the ceremony of neoliberalism
continued in our country on December 1 of
1994, the economy burst in crisis, the
treacherous war masked in legality contin¬
ued, as did the obsessive government resis-

S ocieties receive the terrorists they
deserve. Despite the efforts of govern¬
ments all over the world to portray ter¬
rorism as the work of a few diseased fanatics,
the phenomenon of political violence against
innocent civilians has become too common
and too universal to be so easily dismissed.
The campaigns of violence and counter-vio¬
lence can no longer be treated as marginal
events that occur against the backdrop of
national party and international politics.

Indeed, the fact that so many Americans
were surprised by what happened in
Oklahoma City is itself a phenomenon that
requires explanation. The cries of “How
could it happen here?” sounded a distinctly
jarring note to the citizens of almost every
other country in the world. After all,
America has long been known as a violent
society, so why were people so surprised?

Looking more closely at the media reac¬
tion to the bombing, as well as that of the
Clinton administration, one discovers that
what really jarred many Americans is that
the prime suspect looked just like them:
white, male, middle class, from Middle
America. If he had been Black, Arab, or
Muslim, (i.e. a member of a group usually
assumed to be at war with the federal gov¬
ernment] no one would have blinked an
eyelid. If he had turned out to be Hispanic,
female, and/or gay, the increasingly right-
wing “mainstream” of American politics
would have gleefully pointed the finger at
“liberal” social policies, and called for the
poor and minorities to be treated as the
“criminals” that they are. As it was, Clinton
used the fear inspired by the bombing to
try to push through new powers for the
domestic security apparatus and declared a
total trade embargo on Iran.

These last two points might seem uncon¬
nected. One lies in the field of domestic

tance to a democratic opening and a pro¬
found reform of the State, and the shameful
sale of national sovereignty and the repres¬
sive blows to the popular movements.

In the city and in the Mexican countiy-
side, the popular demands found the same
response: lies, jail, death.

Contrary to what was expected and
desired by the bad government, the post-
electoral miasma was overcome, and to
each new blow, the democratic forces
responded with rapidity, creativity and
decisiveness.

civil rights, the other in foreign policy. In
fact, as I will attempt to demonstrate, there
is a firm connection between the current
rightward shift in domestic policy and
increased American militarism abroad. I
will begin by briefly outlining the domestic
situation before moving on to its foreign
policy parallels.

THE RISE OF THE RIGHT

In the Jan./Feb. 1995 issue of Love and
Rage, Chris Day outlined the consequences
of the Republican landslide in the congres¬
sional elections. Since I am largely in agree¬
ment with what he said, I won’t go over
everything he said. Suffice it to say that we
are witnessing a major shift, in the US and
world-wide, towards the rise of right-wing
mass movements. The “left” has either suf¬
fered the well-deserved fate of Stalinism, or
else shifted increasingly rightward. This
point is particularly obvious in the case of
the evolution of the Democratic party.

Long known as the party of white
supremacy, the Democrats built a solid con¬
stituency based on giving white workers a
slightly bigger piece of the pie. Blacks have
generally had nowhere to go in “main¬
stream” politics, since attempts at self-
determination were brutally squashed by
both parties. With the reluctant adoption of
a civil-rights program (with all of its now
obvious limitations) by the Democrats,
Black votes generally chose to support them
as the lesser of two evils. But, as Day has
pointed out, this alliance is no more.

The Democratic Party has now been cap¬
tured by a group of conservative tech¬
nocrats. Any pretense to left-wing views
has been dropped. The Democrats are now a
party of the moderate right, complete with

(Continued to page 7)

(Continued to page 14)

Exploding the American Empire

An Interpretation of the Oklahoma City Bombing

■BY Adam Sabra

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1995 • LOVE AND RAGE • PAGE 1

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Introduction

O K, we’re a little excited. This is the
largest issue of Love and Rage ever
(28 pages), and it’s packed with good
stuff. This issue has analysis of the
Unabomber and the Oklahoma bombing, an
article about strategies for saving Mumia
Abu-Jamal, an update on the NYC squat
evictions, and an article about the struggle
over how to fight for reproductive freedom.
It has two pages of news and reviews about

the Black Panthers, analysis and explana¬
tion of Human Life International, and an
investigation of the demise of DC’s Beehive
Infoshop and the consequences for info-
shops everywhere.

We also have extensive coverage of the
EZLN’s international consultation-an
unprecedented request for the people of
Mexico and the international solidarity
community to help the EZLN decide what
their political future should be-a review of
First World: Ha! Ha! Ha!, an interview with
Bill Sales, and a debate about nationalism
on the letters page. And, of course, more
news about prisoners’ struggles, acts of

Is the Unabomber an Anarchist?

, BY Wayne Price

T he “Unabomber” claims to be an anar¬
chist. For 17 years, the person who has
been called the Unabomber has been
attacking people with bombs, without mak¬
ing an explanation. The bomb targets have
included some rich and powerful individu¬
als, such as the April killing of a lobbyist
for a logging association. But the main tar¬
gets have been college professors (of genet¬
ics and computer science) and owners of
computer stores. “Unintended” injuries have
happened to others, including students, a
secretary, and passengers on an airplane. In
six bombings, th*ere have been three deaths
and 22 injuries.

Now he has written a letter declaring his
politics to be “anarchist and radical envi¬
ronmentalist.” (Although the Unabomber
claims to be “the terrorist group FC,” I use
“he,” since the evidence suggests one per¬
son and the politics suggests a male.) The
Oklahoma bombing by a few fascists is
widely seen as reflecting the political cul¬
ture of a broader far-right movement. The
question is sure to be raised: Should the
bombings by this .“anarchist” similarly be
seen as reflecting the politics of the anar¬
chist and radical environmental move¬
ments? My answer: No, and Maybe.

To be sure, the Unabomber (or “FC”) was
bombing for years before raising the anar¬
chist banner. However, his aim was anti-
technological from the first. Whether or not
they originally inspired him, there is no
reason to doubt that he has come to agree
with anarchist ecological views. His opin¬
ions are close enough to certain widespread
views within the anti-authoritarian move¬
ment to be worth discussing.

HIS ANARCHIST VISION

His letter to the New York Times (4/26/95)
states, “We call ourselves anarchist because
we would like, ideally, to break down all
society into very small, completely
autonomous units.” It is true that anarchists
have generally been dccentralists, because
participatory democracy is only possible in
human-scale communities where people can
meet face-to-face. This may include villages,
factory councils, city neighborhoods, social
clubs, or whatever. However, many anar¬
chists have also advocated for a federation
from the bottom-up, so that local groups are
in a network of voluntary associations cov¬
ering regions, continents, and the world.

His vision includes complete destruction
of the “industrial-technological system”
worldwide. Again, most anarchists today do
not regard the current development of
industrial technology as “progressive” or
even “neutral,” as do Marxists and liberals.
Capitalism and the state have developed
this technology for their own purposes of
exploitation, profit and war. A new society
will not be able to simply use these
machines Just as they are.

However there is a dispute within the
anti-authoritarian/ecological movement.
Some believe that a new society should use
technological knowledge to create a new
type of industry, bountiful but non-exploita-
tive and ecological. Others advocate going
back to pre-industrial society, to medieval
technology, or hunting and gathering.

Like the Unabomber, these people seem
to forget that pre-industrial society was
often highly oppressive, including monar¬
chism, mass slavery, feudalism, war, and
the oppression of women before class soci¬
ety even developed. In any case, pre-indus¬
trial society evolved into industrial society;
out of that came this. Just as industrial
machinery is not automatically liberatory,
neither is the absence of industrial technol¬
ogy automatically liberatory.

HIS STRATEGY

The Unabomber admits to having no strategy
for anarchism. “We don’t see any clear road

to this goal, so we leave it for the indefinite
future.” Instead, “our more immediate goal,
which we think may be attainable.during the
next several decades, is the destruction of the
worldwide industrial system.”

There are many other anarchists who
have no idea how anarchism might come.
And neither I nor anyone else has a crystal
ball or a fully worked-out analysis. But it is
possible to begin to work toward a modern
analysis and strategy for an anarchist revo¬
lution. This requires developing both our
theory and our activity. We need to analyze
the social system (using tools from various
sources such as feminism, classical
Marxism, historical anarchism, ecological
theory, etc.). We need to look for the weak¬
nesses in the system, the nature of the
developing crisis, the social forces likely to
struggle. Especially, we need to participate
in the popular struggles, in dialogue with
other viewpoints. We need to develop an
organization that can help us do these
things without tying us down.

Instead, the Unabomber proposes to blow
Up individuals. In a letter to one of his vic¬
tims, he wrote, “ If there were no computer
scientists, three would be no progress in
computer science.” Clearly he thinks of the
enemy as individuals rather than a social
system~a social system that can create
computer scientists faster than he can kill
them. Similarly he blames the technology,
not the society which requires it.

He also hopes to “propagate anti-indus¬
trial ideas" by his bombing. But bombs (or
assassination or kidnapping), when not a
close part of a popular struggle, are seen by
most people as one more evil of the social
system, not as part of the solution.'If any-'^
thing, it leads people to support the estab¬
lishment against those who seem to want
pointless destruction.

He is trying to spread ideas by a book. If
it is pifblished and publicized by the media,
he promises to stop bombing people, and
only target buildings in the future. As if the
rulers care about the deaths of professors or
computer-store owners!

VIOLENCE

Like most people, I am not a pacifist. The
existence of widespread police brutality and
the growth of the fascist “militias” show
that popular movements will have to
defend themselves. The state will never
allow a non-violent, democratic revolution.

However, the use of violence exacts a
price. It makes revolutionaries less sensi¬
tive, less morally keen, less like people of
the new world. Violence is only Justifiable
in a revolutionary situation or in defense of
a popular struggle (for example, the Black
Panther Party at its height). When revolu¬
tionaries, isolated from most people, set out
to strike at even the most vicious oppres¬
sors, the results are invariably bad.
Bystanders get injured, the revolutionaries
become more isolated from the people, they
get killed or Jailed, and the state gets a pop¬
ular excuse for greater repression.

As a general rule, I would give political
and legal support to such revolutionaries
when arrested by the state, despite my dis¬
agreements. In the case of the Unabomber,
he is a murderer dragging noble ideas
through the mud.

HIS AUTHORITARIANISM

Anarchism has a popular image of bomb¬
throwing, based on a real trend in anarchist
history. But there are other historical trends
in anarchism, including organizing mass
labor struggles (anarcho-syndicalist, the
IWW), mass military forces (Makhno,
Durruti), and even a pacifist trend (Tolstoy,
Goodman). There is nothing inevitably “ter¬
rorist” about anarchism.

In our time most, “terrorism” has been
carried out by Marxist-Leninists, national¬
ists, and other statists, not anarchists. (Of

PAGE 2 • LOVE AND RAGE • AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1995

revolt and rebellion from around the world,
and more news about what’s going on than
you can shake a stick at.

We’re sorry that personnel changes in
the production group delayed the paper for
several weeks, and hope that the contents
make it worth the wait.

Look for an analysis of World Systems
Theories, an interview with British anarchist
band Chumbawamba, an analysis of the
Omnibus Counter-Terrorism act, an investi¬
gation of the UN in Bosnia, information
about the Michigan Militia, and much
more, in the next issue.

The Production Group

course, such violence has always been small
potatoes compared to the massive terror
used by the military and police forces of the
states.) For example, the Weatherpeople of
the ‘60s were admirers of Stalin and Charles
Manson.

This sort of small group “terrorism” is
inevitably authoritarian. The Unabomber,
who admits to having no strategy for popu¬
lar struggle, seeks to overthrow industrial
society virtually single-handedly. He will
force people to live in non-industrial, total¬
ly decentralized society? What if they do
not want to live in such a society? And
they do not: the vast majority support the
existing system, more or less. Rather than
trying to persuade them, he intends to blow
up their society.

Anarchists are against the vanguardism
of the Leninists but they are often unclear

Can the Unabomber blow up a social relationship -

without too much "collateral damage"?

about Just what vanguardism^is. Many
'*thinirth^t theyavoid'vanguardism by being
against the self-organization of anarchists.
In my opinion, vanguardism is not the
belief that a small group may be right and
the majority wrong. Few believe in revolu¬
tionary anarchism while the vast majority
supports statist capitalism; we have every
right to organize ourselves to try to per¬
suade the majority of our viewpoint, always
acknowledging that we have much to learn
from others.

No, vanguardism is the belief that the
correct minority has the right to impose its
views on the majority. When the minority
seeks to rule over the people, to act for
them, to be political in their place, then it is
vanguardist and authoritarian, no matter
how “anti-authoritarian” is its ideology—as
’ is the case of the Unabomber.

. THE UNABOMBER AND ANARCHISM

To return to the original question: are the
Unabomber’s murders connected to the pol¬
itics of anarchism? First, I answer “No.” His
views have nothing in common with my
views on anarchism. And even the most
misguided anarchist bomb-throwers and
assassins of the past would not have killed
professors and students.

But I also say “Maybe.” His views are
similar to those of many anarchists: the
lack of interest in developing a strategy for
popular revolution; the belief that the
enemy is industrial technology; not build¬
ing an organization; not participating in
popular struggles, but acting as an elite
above the people; the worship of violence,
abstracted from popular struggle; a willing¬
ness to impose their views on the people,
even while denouncing as vanguardist
those who try to persuade people. Perhaps I
could add: an ambiguity about democracy,
seeing anarchism as for freedom versus
democracy, rather than as the most extreme
form of democracy. All these concepts are
reflected in the Unabomber’s letters and
actions and are also held by various trends
within the anti-authoritarian movements.

No doubt the Unabomber will be used
as an excuse for denouncing anarchism.
The movement would be wise to prepare
by having open discussion about him and
his methods.^

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20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28

Liberal Attack on Choice

BY Laura from Bay Area
Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights

W hen Operation Rescue (OR) wants to
get arrested on federal charges for
blockading a clinic, and “pro-choice”
people not only let them blockade, but active¬
ly prevent other clinic defenders from stop¬
ping them—the women’s movement has a real
problem, and they call themselves the leaders
of the mainstream women’s movement—The
Fund for the Feminist Majority.

On Memorial Day weekend, 23 Operation
Rescuers and Missionaries for the Pre-Bom
blockaded a clinic in North Hollywood,
Calif, for two hours. They were treated with
kid gloves, gently arrested, charged with
misdemeanor failure to disperse, and
released, in spite of the fact that many of
them were on probation. Two BACORR (Bay
Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights)
clinic defenders (myself and Lilly) were
arrested within 15 minutes of arriving at the
clinic for chanting. We were brutalized and
ended up with the same charges as OR.

LIBERAL COLLABORATION

OR had announced the hit months ahead of
time, initially targeting New York City, but
changed their venue when they realized the
level of resistance and lack of support they
would find there. The plan was to get
arrested and charged with violating the
Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances
(FACE) law in order to challenge its consti¬
tutionality through a Supreme Court case.

Since the Brookline Massacre, OR has
been struggling to paste a face of non-vio¬
lence onto their movement. The checks
haven’t been pouring in, so what do a
bunch of misogynist used-car salesmen and
thugish wanna-be cops do? Yessireeee get
yer Supreme Court case right here, get a
lawyer to argue about freedom of religion
and the liberal persecution of Christians in
America, squeeze a few crocodile tears for
those poor, prayerful protesters whose
rights are violated when they “peacefully”
harass women and blockade clinics, and
whammo—the anti-abortion discourse of
women and doctors as murderers gets fur¬
ther play in the mainstream press.

Similar to the double-speak of US troops
as “peacekeepers,” OR’s self-described

“non-violence” is a discourse intended to
legitimate a violent political campaign. Not
only does this language attempt to veil
OR’s connections to assassins and clinic
bombers, it also sanctions the daily indig¬
nities women are subjected to by anti-abor¬
tion protesters—the verbal abuse and
harassment at clinics is justifiable for the
sake of saving “babies” and ending the
“violence of abortion.” Maybe, goes the
logic, a few more people will turn their
heads away when they see “good
Christians” verbally harassing women
going into clinics because at least the
Christians aren’t shooting anybody.

OR wasn’t the only group invested in
OR getting charged with FACE. The Fund
for the Feminist Majority was as deter¬
mined as OR to let the anti’s blockade a
clinic and take arrests. The Fund had put
in a lot of resources into the Clinton elec¬
tion and into lobbying for FACE. Rather
than see this pre-announced clinic assault
as an opportunity to build pro-choice
people’s abilities to defend clinics and
resist the Christian Right, the Fund saw
this as an opportunity to legitimate their
electoral work by “letting the police do
the right thing,” and go for a test case of
FACE. This was no about-face (so to
speak) for the Fund; they consistently dis¬
courage active clinic defense around the
country, and, while using the language of
defending clinics, have organized pro-
choice people who show up to keep the
clinic open into sign-waving, chanting
“counter-protesters.” (See Love and Rage
vol. 6 no. 2 for Carolyn’s excellent
overview of the role clinic defense has
played nationally).

BACORR and plenty of other radical
reproductive-rights activists around the
country have been clear that reliance on
FACE, or any other law, does not ensure
reproductive health access for women. Just
compare the government’s response to the

Oklahoma bombing to the hundreds of
“unsolved” clinic bombings over the past
10 years. As for FACE, a crew of
Missionaries for the Pre-Born who locked
themselves to a clinic in Milwaukee, Wis.,
and were charged under FACE, have
already been let off the hook.

Laws don’t stop anti-woman violence, and
this one certainly hasn’t made a difference.
FACE was passed with the compromise that
demonstrators at a church can be charged for
the same violations as anti’s at a clinic-it is
a tool of social control that can be used
against pro-choice people fighting for wom¬
en’s freedom. The orientation of organiza¬
tions towards this law, and their clinic
defense tactics, exposes ultimately our differ¬
ent goals-are we fighting for women’s free¬
dom? Or are we fighting for the status quo?

WHAT HAPPENED IN LOS ANGELES

Fight Back Network members from
BACORR, Refuse ft Resist Minneapolis,
and Love and Rage went to LA May 25th-
28th to try to keep the clinics open and to
blast OR’s efforts to define themselves in
the media as non-violent-peaceful-baby-
lovin’-Christians. BACORR had been in
touch with WAC LA (Women’s Action
Coalition) and a Southern California NOW
(National Organization for Women) chap¬
ter that welcomed our support and
involvement.

The day prior to the hit, OR did a media
“prey-her” event at a Riverside clinic. We

(Continued to page 24)

Pigs on horses

NY Squats Seized,
Retaken, and Seized

By Dave Lawrence
n May 30th a police task force con¬
sisting of hundreds of riot police.
Emergency Service Units, a heli¬
copter, and an armored personnel carrier
raided the squatted buildings on East 13th
Street in New York City.

The buildings, squatted for over a decade,
are targeted for development by a corrupt
non-profit housing group with close ties to
Ae district’s City Councilmember. The pro¬
ject would build 41 units of “low income”
housing, unaffordable to most neighborhood
residents including the current occupants.

After seven months of conflict in the
courts, the battlefield shifted to the streets
when police moved to enforce vacate
orders issued on phony safety issues. Two
buildings, 541 and 545 East 13th Street,
and the ground floor of a third building,
539, controlled by the East 13th Street
Home-steaders Coalition, were evicted.

The vacate orders were proved to be a
sham during three days of hearings in State
Supreme Court. The city appealed the deci¬
sion, and although the Appellate Division
did not overturn the lower court’s findings,
it reinstated the city’s “statutory stay,”
which allows the city to ignore a ruling
while an appeal is pending. The “statutory
stay” provided the city with a loophole big
enough to drive a tank through.

Squatters learned late on May 25 that the
city had a green light to move against the
buildings. All intelligence sources indicated
a 5:00 a.m. raid on Tuesday. By Monday the
scene on 13th Street was hectic. Children
and the elderly were evacuated and some
residents staying for the siege packed up
possessions. All day vehicles lined the block
bringing materials for fortification and
moving out refugees and personal belong¬
ings. Arc welders ran late into the night,
barricading windows, doors and gates.

By 2:30 in the morning squatters became
restless. Two hundred people had gathered

for an overnight vigil, defense and protest.
Squatters welded themselves into their
homes. People outside began to construct
street barricades using debris, major appli¬
ances, and an abandoned car flipped upside
down. Gasoline was poured over the barri¬
cades somewhat prematurely, arousing the
interest of passing police patrols. Squatters
rando*mIy fired off bottle rockets and
exploded M-80s in defiance of the threat
looming against them.

Police commanders arrived earlier than
they had planned to observe the scene. Not
having expected the type of response being
flaunted by the squatters, they delayed
their attack until shortly past 9:00 a.m.
Police moved in against the buildings and
the street simultaneously.

Emergency Service Units
armed with 9mm sub¬
machine-guns advanced
over the rooftops. Police
positioned snipers on sur¬
rounding buildings. The 50
people remaining behind
barricades retreated slowly,
offering measured resis¬
tance to the advancing riot
police and tank-like
armored personnel carrier.

Police made their way
into the buildings, cutting
through fortifications as
they descended fire escapes
and broke through window
barricades. They then went
apartment by apartment
breaking in doors. A resi¬
dent of 545 taunted police
from the rooftop shouting
“bad cop, no doughnut”
before police were finally
able to gain access to the
roof, where they arrested
him at gunpoint. It was past
noon by the time police had

removed the last occupant of 541. Thirty-
one people were arrested during the assault.

On June 3rd, 200 demonstrators chanting
“tanks, no thanks, we’ll burn your fuckin’
banks,” marched to the site of the evictions
wheeling a plywood and cardboard mock-
up of the armored personnel carrier used by
police. As the march reached the comer of
13th Street the handful of police stationed
there to guard the buildings scrambled
unsuccessfully to block the demonstrators.
Police barricades were knocked over and
the scaffolding erected in front of 54,1 was
damaged when a support post was pulled
out. Police began spraying mace at demon¬
strators and made five arrests. Charges
included felony riot and incitement to riot.
One of those arrested was seriously injured.
The demonstrators then marched through
the neighborhood and concluded with a
speak-out at Tompkins Square Park.

On the evening of July 4th, using what
the New York Times described as “tactics
befitting commandos,” 541 East 13th Street
was reoccupied. Police stationed there were
taken by surprise as the “commandos”
unfurled banners from the roof and smashed
the flood lights installed by the city.

As police reinforcements arrived they
attacked people on the street and were pelt¬
ed with bottles and M-80s. Two police heli¬
copters hovered above. One helicopter was
hit by a flare fired from a rooftop.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people clashed
with police along Avenue B and in
Tompkins Square. The front doors to the
yuppie condo Cristadora building were
smashed and riot police were hit with
dozens of bottles. Many community resi¬
dents joined in the resistance, throwing
objects from windows and firing fireworks
at police. When police finally recaptured
541, three hours later, it was empty. Police
then proceeded to break into 539, where
they made arrests. Police forced their way
into many neighboring buildings, threaten¬
ing and brutalizing dozens of community
residents.

Currently, the city is barred from begin¬
ning any construction at the site. A police-
state presence on the block has been main¬
tained since the May 30th evictions.
Squatters vow not only to continue the
struggle to defend the remaining buildings
but to reclaim those lost. The legal case is
still being heard in State Supreme Court. ★

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1995 • LOVE AND RAGE • PAGE 3

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20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28

Photo: Erin Immaculate Photo: Barbara lee

BLACK PANTHERS: THEN AND NOW

Panther on the

Lir Bobby Hutton policing the pigs,

BY Matthew Quest
ecognitiqn" of the revolutionary
dynamic of Black nationalism and
the promotion of a program to mobi¬
lize and organize the Black community
around its nationalistic demands are the
touchstone of revolutionary action in the
Black community. Is exploring all of this
too much to ask of a film?

I FEARED THE WORST

Most fictionalized historical documentaries
have in general the following characteris¬
tics: poor chronological arrangement; the
creation of characters and occurrence of
which there are no historical record; selec¬
tive highlighting and omission from the
historical record; and speculative political
implications and judgements at the discre¬
tion of the authors.

Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X” reduced
Malcolm’s story to a militant after-school
special. Juvenile delinquent, through disci¬
pline and education, becomes the most mil¬
itant spokesman of his race. One leaves
with the impression that you too can
become a threat to the government by con¬
verting to Islam, “the true Black man’s reli¬
gion,” not once but twice, as well as by
perfecting your technique of “Mau-
Mauing” The White Man. An explanation
of Malcolm’s actual program to organize
and mobilize the Black community, his
changing attitudes regarding whites, and
his statements connecting racism with cap¬
italism are left out. Likewise, his disclosure
that in 1960 and 1961 he had been
instructed by Elijah Muhammad, leader of
The Nation of Islam, to facilitate alliances
with the KKK and the American Nazi Party
is omitted, as well as Malcolm’s personal
associations, before and after he left the
NOI with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. All
I know is that after he came back from
Mecca, Spike snuffed him out quicker than
Louis Farrakhan could “create the climate”
for his death.

When I sat down to watch “Panther,” I
was just hoping that the Digable Planets’
prediction on their first album wouldn’t
come true: that in the retro, Black popular
culture flava’, the Black Panther Party
would be reduced to a cartoon.

Isaac Hayes can have his own “900”
number without distorting the value of his
“revolutionary program.” M.C. Hammer a
pimp? Why not? The Jackson 5 would have
dreads? OK, but first they’d have to start
bald like Isaac Hayes. However, if Huey
Newton was reduced to “Baby Huey,” an
oversized duck who doesn’t know his own
strength and conveniently slips on a banana
peel to impose his whole weight on Porky
Pig in a cop costume, that would be intoler¬
able. Thankfully I was pleasantly surprised
by “Panther”. It was no “Malcolm X.”

"PANTHER" PRETTY FAITHFUL

The basic history is left intact by the film.
The Black Panther Party (BPP) was started
in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale,
who were students at Merritt College in
Oakland, Calif. Eldridge Cleaver, who lived

in San Francisco, joined shortly after.
During the initial period they operated
chiefly as a self-defense group in the Bay
Area, protesting police brutality and sup¬
porting the right of Blacks to bear arms. It
.was during this period that they developed
their 10-point program, centered around
Black control of the Black community.

This program was a good beginning
toward the development of the kind of
broader revolutionary program that, if car¬
ried out through mass struggles for com¬
munity control of the schools, police, and
other institutions of the Black community,
could have led to a big step forward for the
Black liberation struggle. The logic of such
a struggle would have been a mass Black
political movement independent of the
Republican and Democratic parties. The
potential for such mass organization was
shown in 1968, when the Panthers rapidly
expanded on a national scale, recruiting
thousands of members and setting up
dozens of chapters.

Mario and Melvin Van Peebles weave
selected highlights of documentaiy footage
with fictionalized depictions of the imple¬
mentation of concrete strategies and tactics
of liberation that could conceivably be
implemented by audience members.

Mao, Marx and Fanon are among the
authors of books the Panthers are shown
reading in the film. Fliers are passed out on
the street. Fundraising for accumulation of
firearms and prisoner support work is
shown through sales of the party paper,
Mao’s “Little Red Book”, and hosting com¬
munity gatherings. Their social programs,
such as the breakfast program and the
Panther school, are depicted. Their armed
intervention in instances of police brutality
is portrayed. The contradictions in the con¬
ditions African-Americans face in the US
are portrayed through the eyes of a Black
Vietnam veteran back from the on-going
war. Belief in God and non-violent philoso¬
phy are questioned. Capitalism is critiqued.

CREATIVE OMISSIONS

The filmmakers carefully avoid criticizing
the Panther Party’s political contemporaries
who are still alive and active today. There
is no mention of Angela Davis (now a
prominent member of the Committees of
Correspondence, the recent “youth” split
from the Communist Party USA) or George
Jackson and the Soledad Brother case.
There is no mention of Ron “Maulana”
Karenga’s United Slaves organization,
members of which assassinated BPP mem¬
bers on the UCLA campus during their fight
to control the newly implemented Black
studies program in Jan. 1969. Karenga, the
creator of the African-American holiday
Kwanzaa, is a key figure in what is known
as Afrocentrism today. Also absent is a
depiction of Bobby Seale bound and
gagged at the Chicago 7 trial (8, including
him). No visits by Huey to Cuba or China
are depicted. Neither are the later campaign
for the Democratic ticket by Bobby Seale
and Elaine Brown, for mayor of Oakland
and city council respectively, depicted.

Women are marginalized in the movie

Prowl:

A Review of
"Panther"

THE DECLINE OF THE PANTHERS

The decline of the Panthers is attributed to
the FBI’s COINTELPRO program. In addition
to being divided by FBI infiltration and dis¬
ruption, the BPP, in the movie as in real
life, gave plenty of opportunity to their
enemies to exploit them through undemoc¬
ratic practices and general paranoia fol¬
lowed by frequent purges.

A government conspiracy to flood the
Black community with hard drugs, to pacify
the numerous ‘60s urban uprisings, is made
a central plot in “Panther.” It is presented as
a conspiracy of organized crime and the FBI
facilitated by a Black agent. It’s as believable
as any analysis of the present drug-infested
condition of the urban ghettos today. The
film shows the BPP fighting with drug deal¬
ers before the plan goes into effect, but later
being overwhelmed by them.

There is a plug for support of former BPP
members who are still political prisoners in
the US, prominently displaying a picture of
Geronimo Pratt at the end of the film.

“Panther” on the whole is a most subver¬
sive film for the questions it raises with its
audience and the strategy and tactics it
suggests. The Van Peebles’ have created a
film that is heavy, whose implications are
dangerous and yet inspiring, and should be
handled with care and critical discussion. ★

“Panther,” save for one flash of recruits
who explain to Bobby Seale and others that
they want equality as members of the
party. This is contrasted to the clear subor¬
dination of women in the cultural national¬
ist organization referred to as the “Punk”
Panthers, which relegated women to being
servants to the men. But except for the
uneasy moment when Seale welcomes the
recruits to the BPP with a smile, that’s all
the women’s liberation the movie has to
offer. This is the scene that is paraded
through the music video for “Freedom,” a
sound-track song performed by a cross-sec¬
tion of female hip-hop all-stars.

While machismo was rampant in this
film, overt homophobia (and homosexuali¬
ty) were non-existent. There is no mention
of Huey Newton’s noble but inadequate
attempt at leadership on the question, nor
Eldridge Cleaver’s wretched perspective on
such matters (read what Eldridge says
about James Baldwin in Soul on Ice).

An omission that obscures the history if
the portrayal of Eldridge Cleaver as respon¬
sible for Lif Bobby Hutton’s death at the
hands of the police. Eldridge and Bobby
Seale are shown as having a debate about
the strategy of “picking up the gun,” Later,
Eldridge advocates an .offensive attack
against the police in retaliation for their
constant persecution.

Historically, this occurred during the
week of the assassination of Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. The two separate accounts
of the incident written by Cleaver himself
prove inconclusive. The Panthers were clear¬
ly in disarray as to whether or not to attack
the police, both in the film and in reality.

Historically, Lif Bobby was killed the
night before a planned outdoor barbecue
that had been much maligned by the author¬
ities. The film fuses together a small ambush
of some police cars a couple nights earlier,
which in fact went off without any difficul¬
ty, with the ambush of Cleaver, Hutton, and
others the night before the barbecue.

Cleaver is portrayed largely as an out¬
sider who could capture the attention of the
rank and file with chants of “Fuck Ronald
Reagan” the then governor of California.
Cleaver was no more of an ego-maniac
than Huey Newton, and the two are some¬
times cast as leaders of the major split in
the BPP between “ultra-leftism” and
“reformism.” Despite the effort at labeling
them, Newton’s early confrontational deal¬
ings with the police and later cozy dealings
with the Democratic Party, combined with
Cleaver’s presidential candidacy on the
ticket of the Peace and Freedom Party,
prove they could easily change labels.

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PACE 4 • LOVE AND RAGE • AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1995

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28

BLACK PANTHERS: THEN AND NOW

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of Anti-Imperialism

[Settlers: Mythology of the White
Proletariat^ J. Sakai, Morning Star Press,
178 pp., $8.95, $4.00 for prisoners, from:
Cooperative Distribution Services, Box
77542, National Capitol Station,
Washington, DC 20013]

BY Kuwasi Balagoon

G reat works measure up, inspire high¬
er standards of intellectual and
moral honesty, and, when appreciat¬
ed for what they are, serve as a guide for
those among us who intend a transforma¬
tion of reality. Settlers, the Mythology of
the White Proletariat caused quite a stir in
the anti-imperialist white left and among
nationalists of the Third World nations
within the confines of the US empire as
well as anarchists and Moslems of this
hemisphere. In short, among all of us who
are ready and willing to smash or disman¬
tle the empire, for whatever reasons, and
whatever reasoning. This is in spite of the
fact that it is a Marxist work, because it
isn’t out of the stale, sterile, static, mechan¬
ical mode of the vulgar sap-rap that has
carried that label.

Its historical recounting of the sequence
of horrors perpetrated against non-white
people, from the beginning of Babylon to
the recent past, has not been discounted
publicly, to my knowledge, by anyone,
including the cheap-shot artist who offered
an underhanded review of it in the Fifth
Estate called “The Continuing Appeal of
Nationalism.” [Editor’s Note: This review
was written by the late Freddy Perlman,
and is also available as a pamphlet.]
Mythology should serve as a reminder (to
anyone who needs one), of the genocidal
tendencies of the empire, the traitorous
interplay between settler-capitalist, settler-
nondescript, and colonial flunkies. The
flaws and short-comings of the IWW,
which marked the highest point of revolu¬
tionary conscientiousness among whites
here, the fraud carried on by the
Communist Party USA, and assorted other

persistent offenders of common sense and
common decency. To my amazement, a
couple of white anti-imperialists I know
had started the book without finishing,
complaining that it was old hat, but I’ve
heard nothing particularly new from them
and I suggest that they take special note of
detail, and I’ll remind them that this work
is so accurate as to be able to serve as files
on people who will say anything to support
a position that doesn’t support real action.

Not being one to take figures verbatim
without cross-checking, and believing that
class struggle or war within the white
oppressor nation would be a prerequisite
for complete victory of the captive New
African, Mexicano, Native and Puerto
Rican nations, I decided to cross-check
with the most authoritative work available
to me and perhaps anyone, The Rich and
the Super Rich by Ferdinand Lundberg.
This was necessary, I felt, in -order to get a
clear picture of the material conditions of
white folks. This in order to investigate
white Americans’ interest in revolution.
Professor Lundberg used two graphs to
illustrate his point: “Most Americans—citi¬
zens of the wealthiest, most powerful and
most ideal-swathed country in the world—
by a very wide margin own nothing more
than their twin household goods, a few
^glittering gadgets such as automobiles and
television sets (usually purchased on
installment plans, many at second hand)
' and the clothes on their backs. A horde, if
not a majority, of Americans live in shacks,
cabins, hovels, shanties, hand-me-down
Victorian eyesores, rickety tenements and
flaky apartment buildings...”

The second and third tables help us to
make things out a bit clearer; it shows that
25.8% of households had. less than $1,000
to their collective names arid the third
showing us that 28% of all consumer units
had a net under or less than $100. With
11% with a deficit and 5% holding at zero,

(Continued to page 25)

Anarcho-Pantherista

BY Ashanti Omowali
n the Black Panther Party, when some¬
one said, “Power to the People!” the
response would be “ALL Power to the
People!” After many years of political
imprisonment, employing the easy-to-use
Malcolm-Eldridge Educational Super¬
charger, that call/response would take on
more anarchistic meaning. This is about my
experience in the now as an anarchist (a
baby one) within a generally hierarchical
Panther formation.

It was just this year, Jan. 1995, that I
decided to publicly identify myself as anar¬
chist In playing around I came up with a
term to identify me fully: @narcho-pan-
therista (thinking about the word Sandinista,
ha!). Though, just in fun, I decided to keep
it It’s me. Silly, anarchistic, for real.

As a politically active teen in the ‘60s,
making it through that magnificent and
turbulent time, I was ready when me and
my Comrade (Jihad Abdul Mumit, now a
POW in Lewisburg Stalag, Penn.) were first
attracted to that image of Huey and Bobby.
Black-bereted, black-jacketed, black on
down to the boots. And strapped! Panthers.
Yeah,' let’s check them out.

Our nationalist and rebel politics began
to evolve into something more revolution¬
ary and focused. We learned ideology, orga¬
nization, preparation, comradeship, daring.
Once I began to get the picture, I was con¬
vinced: Panther revolution, lumpen-prole¬
tariat, urban guerrilla warfare. Serve the
People survival programs. Wretched of the
Earth, “L’il Red Book,” Panther sistas in
leading functions. Victory...

In short, the Panthers helped me into
“the process of becoming,” as to what a
revolutionary dedicated to freedom, free¬
dom, and more freedom was all about. One
must never stop learning and growing and
working for the People,

My 12+ years on the Malcolm-Eldridge
Supercharger led me, in prison, to further
my learning and understanding of so many
things: Wilhelm Reich and the Frankfurt
School of psychology, various schools of
radical feminist thought and critique, and
Paulo Freire’s methodology of community
education and empowerment. And James
Boggs kept me grounded in the power of
the Black underclass in Babylon. In all, I
was not only learning some heavy shit, but
I was being challenged to give up certain
old ways, beliefs, and mind-sets that were
backwards and anti-revolutionaiy.

At some point, while in the Marion stalag,
a Panther and a stone-cold Sicilian revolu¬
tionary threw some anarchist literature on
me. Got to tell the truth though, my
Marxist-Leninist-Maoist teachings had
already biased me against the shit. So I was
quite reluctant to really check it out But it
helped that I loved them Brothers. Funny
thing is, when you locked down in segrega¬
tion for months and done read every mutha-
fuckin’ thing else, you get bored. After a
while, you’ll pick up and read toilet paper!
What happened was that I did read the shit
and regardless of what my Marxist-Leninist-
Maoist authorities had said against it, this
anarchism was raising some good points.

As I relaxed my mind-set, I learned more.
Combined with the insights of the more
progressive and radical psychologies and
feminist critiques, things that I had experi¬
enced in the past and my understanding of
movement history began to look different.
Structure, sexism, authoritarian peer pres¬
sure against individuality, spontaneity, cre¬
ativity and love. Come to find out that this

guy named Bakunin had some valid criti¬
cisms of the god Marx, and Kropotkin was
deep in Lenin’s shit and Marxist revolution
wasn’t the only way to go.

Years before (before my kapture in ‘74),
another Panther, Frankie Ziths had given
me a mimeographed thing on the anarchist
Makhno and his forces and their foul treat¬
ment by the Bolsheviks. Couldn’t handle it
then, but now 15 years later I read it again
and again. Frankie was like that—very, very
critical thinker. No respecter of titles.
Practice counts. My Comrade passed before
I could say thanks.

Anarchism came to mean the same long-
range objective held by my revolutionary
nationalist movement and the general radi¬
cal movement as far as evolving or creat¬
ing a communist society. The anarchist dif¬
fered in terms of how to do it. Anarchism
said, “Let’s promote the People’s self-direct¬
ing and self-governing capacities now.”
Don’t need no authoritarian political parties
acting like parental control-freaks. People
got brains. Remember, that’s where we
come from. “Have Faith in the People, Have
Faith in the Party,” say the Marxist-
Leninist-Maoists. No! “Have Faith in the
People” and let it stand. If any individual
or group got something to offer from their
experiences, expertise or “higher” learn¬
ings, then let the relationship to the People
in struggle be one of facilitation, and not
this arrogant leadership.

Mind-set from the old school is a mutha-
fucka. There are times when new knowl¬
edge can be so powerful that the learner
experiences a sense of being overwhelmed.
How do I convey all this so that it can be
of help to others individually and organiza¬
tionally. My concern? We gotta win. But
only the People’s full participation can
bring true victory. And the People arc real
individual human beings, like me-with
brains, desires, fears, angers, dreams, etc.
Before coming out of prison in ‘85 I made a
personal vow to never ignore this. I was
coming out bringing my learnings in psy¬
chology, feminism, and anarchism. They
were now a part of me.

The Black Panther Collective was formed
about a year ago as a result of people in
the slave quarters seeing the Black Panther
newspaper. Many expressed an interest in
the activities of the Black Panther
Newspaper Committee, a formation of for¬
mer members of the BPP. These mainly
young brothas and sistas expressed a desire
to wanna work Revolution in their respec¬
tive slave quarters and do it in the spirit of
the Panther as they understood it. So,
BPNC/NY decided to call up them numbers
and set the process going. I am proud to
say that most of the ones who first stepped
forward are still with the process. They’re
baaad and are revolutionaries after our
own hearts, as indicated by the fact that we
fight all the time (because they got minds
of their own!). They wanted two things
from us: (l)to be involved in community
work, including political prisoner work,
and (2)P.E., political education, including
BP history and style of practice. We were
more than happy to provide both. But this
was, and still is, no easy process, because
they demanded Leadership! Anarchism has
taught me to pay particular attention to
this concept and its political dangers to
individuality, spontaneity, creativity, and
the overall health and welfare of the
Revolution for a truly free society.

(Continued to page 24)

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1995 • LOVE AND RACE • PAGE 5

In the service of imperialism

FIGHTING FASCISM

The Oklahoma City Bombing

By Tom Burghardt,
Bay Area Coalition for
Our Reproductive Rights
he political context for the bombing
of the Oklahoma City federal building,
can be deciphered through a careful
reading of key Christian Patriot texts. The
bombing is almost a textbook case of what
Aryan Nations/KKK leader, Louis Beam has
termed “leaderless resistance” or “phantom
cell” doctrine.

LEADERLESS RESISTANCE

Leaderless resistance is a paramilitary strat¬
egy that will immunize the leadership from
prosecution on the one hand, while allow¬
ing the cell an unlimited operational range
on the other hand.

According to Wisconsin’s Free Militia, a
paramilitary organization with ties to anti¬

abortion leader. Rev. Matthew Trewhella,
the founder of Missionaries to the Preborn,
and a National Committee member of
Howard Phillips’ United States Taxpayers
Party, the cell structure is the most effica¬
cious method for carrying out operations.

“We use the term ’cell,’ because a cell is
the basic building block in any living
organism. Just as all life, growth, and
reproduction is based on living cells, all
Militia ‘life’ is centered around its cells. The
identities of cell members are known only
within the cell and by their immediate
superior. All basic training is done within a
cell. All codes, passwords, and telephone
networks are determined and held in confi¬
dence within the cell. All fortified positions
are determined, prepared and concealed by
the cell. All combat orders are executed by
the cell as the cell sees fit within its own
context. So the Free Militia IS its cells.”
(emphasis in original, “Field Manual
Section 1,” op. cit., p. 78)

The cell structure of the Free Militia is
further diversified so as to ensure special¬
ization of function in combination with
tight security precautions. These four-fold
differentiations within the organization are:
1. Command, 2. Combat, 3. Support, and 4.
Communique cells.

To facilitate their efficient capacity as an
urban or rural fighting team, “Combat cells
provide the patrolling and fighting capabil¬
ity of the Free Militia. Each cell consists of
about eight able-bodied ‘minutemen’ with
its own leader, communications, ren¬
dezvous points, staging areas and standing
orders. They execute the orders of their
command cells and do all their own train¬
ing within the combat cell itself. They are
the ‘arms’ of the Free Militia.” (ibid., p. 80)

Regarding the “phantom cell” type orga¬
nization and any potential response by
paramilitary activists, Louis Beam writes:

“Since the entire purpose of Leaderless
Resistance is to defeat state tyranny (at

least as far as this essay is concerned) all
members of phantom cells or individuals
will tend to react to objective events in the
same way through usual tactics of resis¬
tance. Organs of information distribution
such as newspapers, leaflets, computers,
etc., which are widely available to all, keep
each person informed of events, allowing
for a planned response that will take many
variations. No one need issue an order to
anyone.” (Beam, op. cit.)

ANTI-ABORTION TERRORISM

To a lesser degree and on a smaller scale,
factions within the direct action anti-abor¬
tion movement have systematically applied
Louis Beam’s “leaderless resistance” or
“phantom cell” doctrine for a number of
years. The relative successes of their pursuit
of terrorism as a means of effecting political

change has come at a price, however. As
anti-abortion violence has increased, the
political fall-out for the movement has led to
a steep, precipitous decline in public support
and the mobilization of their constituents.

In other words, while the dialectics of ter¬
rorist praxis will increase the visibility of
“the cause” in the public’s mind, it also
sharpens the inherent contradictions as well
as factional disputes within the movement’s
support base. This process is underway with¬
in the direct action anti-abortion movement.
I would hazard a guess and say that a simi¬
lar process will take place within the broader
Christian Patriot and Militia movement as a
result OF Wednesday’s bomb attack.

However, it should be noted that the
“Army of God” and anti-abortion groups
allied with Christian Patriot militias and
political parties are far less concerned with
winning support or creating mass organiza¬
tions than they are with destroying women’s
access to reproductive health-care. Anti¬
abortion terrorism in this case, is a tactic tied
to a broader strategy of diminishing repro¬
ductive health-care to the vanishing point.

In this respect, anti-abortion recourse to
terrorism as a tactical modality for waging
low-intensity warfare, has been successful.
Why is this the case?

As the pool of abortion providers begin
to shrink due to escalating terror, those
who continue to work in the field are sub¬
ject to increasing levels of psychological
and actual violence. Inevitably, the pres¬
sures and stresses have led some abortion
providers to throw in the towel. Abortion
remains “legal”; however, women find it
increasingly difficult to obtain. Terror in
the case of anti-abortion violence is
sharply-focused on an immediate goal.

FASCIST POLITICS AND TERRORISM

While this presents far-right political par¬
ties with obvious problems, the dual-tier

Leaderless Resistance

nature of fascist organizations have
resolved this contradiction in a number of
unique ways. For example, international
and domestic fascist groupings utilize legal,
above-ground organizing in combination
with illegal, underground terrorist cells that
attack opponents, and sharpen contradic¬
tions within class society.

The relationship between the terrorist
Combat 18 group to the British National
Party (BNP) is instructive in this regard. On
the one hand, the BNP functions like any
other political party; it distributes propa¬
ganda, recruits prospective members, and
organizes around sharply-focused cam¬
paigns such as opposition to immigration.
Combat 18, the BNP’s loosely-affiliated ter¬
rorist front, attacks opponents, repeated
attempts to infiltrate and break up Leftist
marches, compiles data on vocal opponents
and organizations, physically attacking
their opponents on the street, in their
homes, etc.

Leaderless resistance is but one of a con-‘
stellation of methodologies used by fascism
to achieve political goals. While we can say
that the majority of adherents of Christian
Patriot groups would oppose the Oklahoma
City bombing, the net effect of terror,
sharpen the social/political contradictions
within capitalist society and strengthen the
call for authoritarian. State solutions
(i.e.political repression) on all fronts.

GROWING FASCISM

As a political methodology, a fascist “strat¬
egy of tension” relies on the psychological
eff^ects of terror to magnify the localized
effects of severe loss of life so that, like a
stone hurled into a pool of water, shock-
waves ripple from the epicenter of the
attack to the furthest reaches of the State.

While Christian Patriots and other far-
right forces in the U. S. are a minute pro¬
portion of the population, the underpin¬
nings of Patriot ideology has struck a recep¬
tive cord among millions of Americans.

The ideological fervor of thousands of
“state citizens” and “freemen,” and their
willingness to resort to violence to achieve
their political goals, spring from the same
sources as the white supremacist and neo-
Nazi movements throughout North
America: race hatred, anti-Semitism, vio¬
lent xenophobia, and their desire to create
a (white) fundamentalist “Christian
Republic” in the United States.

The same can be said of the demonizing
rhetoric freely disseminated by “main¬
stream” politicos in both capitalist parties.
This does not mean that the Republican
Party’s “Contract With America,” is a “fas¬
cist” document. It does mean, however, that
the draconian solutions it proposes in terms

of the role of the State and civil society,
calls for rapid privatization in all social
spheres save one — the State’s immense
repressive police and military apparatus.

Left and Progressive researchers have
pointed to the severe danger posed by the
convergence of anti-abortion extremists.

Timothy McVeigh

armed racists, queerbashers, anti-Semites,
advocates of “state citizenship,” “Wise Use”
movement attacks on environmental
activists and the demonizing rhetoric of the
far-right’s paranoid conspiracism. Though
these so-called “fringe elements" have been
identified as potential, and actual, sources
of terrorist violence, these warnings have
largely gone unheeded, even within
Socialist and leftist circles.

As long as the victims themselves were
“marginal" in the eyes of “mainstream media”
and terrorist industry “experts,” domestic
right-wing terror could easily be consigned to
the back pages; a quick plunge down Orwell’s
memoiy hole would do the rest.

THE RIGHT'S SELF-
FULFILLING PROPHECY

Apparently, the self-fulfilling prophecies of
the Christian Patriots and their phantom war
against the capitalist “New World Order”
have come to pass, with terrifying and tragic
results. What will follow, is anyone’s guess.

The massacre in Oklahoma City, howev¬
er, did not emerge from a political vacuum.
The Christian Patriot movement in general,
and individual Militia units in particular,
have circulated training manuals that rely
almost exclusively on leaderless resistance.

Three years ago, in the aftermath of the
Ruby Ridge stand-off in 1992 [a stand-off
between federal agents and white suprema¬
cist Randy Weaver, during which Weaver’s
son and wife were shot and killed by the
feds], a hastily convened meeting of the
emerging Patriot movement was held in
Colorado. Sponsored by Christian Identity
leader. Rev. Pete Peters, and his “Scriptures
for America” organization, the conclave
sought to formulate a strategy to combat
the “New World Order.” Many observers
point to this meeting as a key factor lead¬
ing to the subsequent rise of the armed
Militia Movement.

According to the (“Special Report on the

Meeting Held in Estes Park, Colorado,
October 23, 24, 25 1992 During the Killing
of Vickie and Samuel Weaver By The
United States Government,") more than 160
leaders of the Christian Identity and

(Continued to page 8)

The Future of america is in their hands

Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 1995

PAGE 6 • LOVE AND RAGE • AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1995

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FIGHTING FASCISM

Oklahoma: Home-Grown Hate

(Continued from page ])

policies of free trade (for American goods .
anyway), reduction or abolition of welfare,
bigger prisons, and an infatuation with
judicial murder as a solution for America’s
social problems. That leaves the
Republicans, especially the wing represent¬
ed by figures such as Newt Gingrich and
Pete Wilson, as the legal wing of a massive
far-right surge in American politics.

The Oklahoma City bombing served to
highlight these new political facts quite
clearly. Immediately after the bombing,
word was put out that foreigners, most
likely Muslims, were responsible for the act.
Clinton encouraged this interpretation by
referring to the blast as “an attack on
America.” In some parts of the US, racist
mobs harassed immigrants of Middle
Eastern origin. In one case, a woman of
Arab origin, whose house was surrounded
by an angry mob, had a miscarriage due to
fright. Immediately, both parties seized the
opportunity created by the hysteria to
demand more stringent measures against
“subversive” groups, a code phrase for
cracking down on immigrant groups, espe¬
cially those persons associated with groups
that oppose US policy in the Middle East.

Of course, it turned out in the end that
no immigrant was responsible for the
explosion. In fact, the culprits appear to
have come from the ranks of the white
right. Here we come to the other aspect of
the current shift in American politics. While
the government is doing everything it can
to protect US capital, using such tactics as
threatening a trade war with Japan, the
privileges that were enjoyed by the white,
generally male workers are being swiftly

BY JOEL

A neo-nazi skinhead concert scheduled
to take place on May 20 in St. Paul
was cancelled after the combined
efforts of Anti-Racist Action (ARA), various
independent activists, and community
members of West St. Paul forced the police
to cancel the show.

TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME

Members of ARA were tipped off about the
show in mid-March and began organizing
against it immediately. Because nazis know
the public will shut their shows down if
they know about them, they have to keep
the address of the gig a secret until the day
of the show.

They discreetly distributed fliers telling
fellow white supremacists to meet at
Mounds Park in St. Paul between noon and
6:00 P.M. to pick up tickets and a map to
the hall where the gig would take place.

Anti-racist activists got a hold of the
flier, obtained a permit to use the park, and
held an anti-racist picnic all day in order to
occupy the place where the gig organizers
wanted to hand out their maps. When car¬
loads of nazis showed up from all over the
Midwest, thinking they would get a map

eroded. Indeed, the process has moved on to
the white-collar sector. Increasingly large
numbers of young white-collar workers are
finding themselves in temporary employ¬
ment, in employment with little chance of
promotion, and unemployed.

Thus, as the government moves to pro¬
tect capital, and demolish the gains made
by blue-collar and white-collar labor, the
would-be leaders of the mass movements
on the right provide scapegoats to divert
attention from the sleight of hand. Fear of
immigrants. Blacks, and others, feeds the
growth of this disease. Anti-abortion atti¬
tudes and religious fundamentalism are
other common ingredients. Often the poor
are told that their lack of work discipline is
to blame for the US’s fall from glory.

NEO-IMPERIALISM

But this development of right-wing dema¬
goguery is not limited to domestic policy.
Indeed, as the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim
rants that filled the airways after the bomb¬
ing indicate, the new right has a big part to
play in neo-imperialism. The honeymoon
of the end of the Cold War is long since
over. Clearly, many of America’s policy
makers have concluded that since they rep¬

resent the world’s only super-power, they
should be able to impose their will on the
rest of the world with impunity.

One case that exposes the arrogance and
hypocrisy of this position came up at the
recent conference to extend the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty for good. The US
took a hard line on Iran’s apparent
attempts to obtain nuclear materials, but
backed Israel’s right not only to possess
nuclear weapons, but to not even place its

and tickets to their rally, they were met by
a crowd of 100 anti-racists led by a “base¬
ball team” who quickly disinvited from the
park any nazis who showed up. Not one
nazi got out of their car the whole day.
There were no fights, and despite hoards of
cops, no arrests, either.

A BEAUTIFUL DAY
IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

But the fun had just begun. Three days
before the gig, members of Anti-Racist
Action got a tip that the show was going to
happen at Smith Avenue Hall in West St.
Paul. Members immediately met with the
owner and confirmed that the nazis had
indeed booked the hall (they lied and told
the owner they were having a birthday
party). We urged the owner to cancel the
gig. Although somewhat sympathetic, he
refused to cancel the show, citing legal and
financial obligations.

So we hit the streets the next day.
Members of ARA went to the community
surrounding the hall, fliering homes and
cars and knocking on doors, talking to
anyone who was home. We let people

(Continued to page 8)

installations under international inspec¬
tion. The US even prevented an Arab
attempt to have Israel mentioned at all in
the proceedings.

At the time, the US administration con¬
tinues to brand everyone who opposes its
Middle East policies as “terrorists.” After
the Oklahoma City bombing, much was
made of the possibility of nuclear terrorism,
possibly sponsored by foreign powers. The
connection was supposed to be clear: US
hegemony requires suppression of foreign
opponents, not only abroad, but also at
home. More and more, American and
European academics have begun to produce
works linking immigration and terrorism, .
especially of Middle Eastern origin. To give
but one example, Arab immigrants in
France are often accused of constituting a
breeding ground for terrorism in Europe,
despite the fact that it is the far right that
terrorizes the immigrants, and not vice-
versa. After Oklahoma City, the first con¬
nection made by most of the media was
with the World Trade Center bombing,
itself an event whose circumstances are
highly murky. The bigotry of the right’s
mass propaganda is backed up by pseudo¬
scholarship, such as Harvard professor
Samuel Huntington’s well known article
about the “clash of civilizations.”
According to this version of the current
political conjuncture, enlightened Western
civilization is threatened by the competitive
power of Confucian and Islamic civiliza¬
tions. Thus the future lies in civilizational
conflict, not class conflict.

It should be noted that the past five
years has seen an increasingly obvious ten¬
dency on the part of the US to enforce its
will by direct application of force, i.e. neo¬
colonialism. Unlike much of what is com¬
monly called neo-colonialism, however,
this policy actually means the establish¬
ment of occupation forces or outposts in
foreign countries, especially the Middle
East. The most obvious example of this is
Iraq, which was not only humbled during
the Gulf War, but is still under occupation.
Other US bases are now being established
and reinforced throughout the region, espe¬
cially in the Gulf countries.

The pursuit of a policy of direct colonial¬
ism raises several question. For one, one
wonders how long the other major powers
of the world, such as Germany and Japan,
will continue to sit back and watch the US
extend its influence. As economic competi¬
tion between these states grows more
intense, the temptation to secure their own
interests abroad may increase, leading to
multi-lateral international competition for
influence, and even outright control of
markets and resources in smaller and poor¬
er countries. It is not impossible that we are
witnessing the rebirth of imperialism.

In addition, the aggressive militaiy poli¬
cy of the US has ramifications for domestic
politics. To some degree, domestic con¬
stituencies influence these policy decisions
in the first place. In the case of the Middle
East, for example, the importance of the
Jewish vote and of Jewish campaign con¬

tributions for the upcoming presidential
elections have played an important role in
the US’s formation of policies vis-a-vis Iran
and Israel which are not popular even with
the US’s European allies.

Furthermore, militarism abroad feeds the
right wing at home. If the anti-Muslim atti¬
tudes expressed after the bombing do not
drive this point home, one can always cite
the fact that the prime suspect in the
bombing is a veteran of the Gulf War. For
him, the connection between America’s
hegemony abroad and the mission of the
right at home was more than clear.

ANTI-IMPERIALISM

Those of us who make up the revolution¬
ary left must face up to certain facts. For
one, there is one, and only one, mass
movement in the US today, and it is viru¬
lently right wing. Furthermore, foreign
allies on the left are few and far between
today. The collapse suffered by the
American left is merely part of a world¬
wide shift in political formations that the
right has engineered with remarkable suc¬
cess. This means that there is no point
waiting for revolution to break out else¬
where. While a few cases, such as Mexico,
seem more promising, ultimately the cen¬
tral position occupied by American capital
and the American state means that the
struggle at home will inevitably turn into
an international struggle. So long as
American capital’s fortress remains
unbreached, other revolutionary move¬
ments will remain prisoners of the over¬
whelming force the US commands.

The relationship between militarism and
domestic oppression should now be clear.
This relationship applies not only to the
Middle East, but also to Latin America. If,
as some have predicted, Mexico has a
“long, hot summer,” the current anti-immi¬
grant drive in the southwest of the US will
probably be joined by increasing calls to
intervene in Mexico’s affairs. As the peso
crisis revealed, US economic stability is
now closely entwined with the Mexican
economic and political regime.

The recognition of the enormity of
these problems leads one to realize that
the inherited politics of civil rights and
anti-racism are not enough. The problem
is not limited to groups of hooded
Klansmen and neo-nazi skinheads, it is
far more pervasive than that. The
Oklahoma City bombers did not come out
of the “mainstream” of the right-wing
movement. But the orgy of hatred and
repression that followed in the wake of
the bombing should make us realize that
the enemy has set up camp in our facto¬
ries, offices, and in the organs of the
state. They have many means available to
them that are far more politically effec¬
tive that a fertilizer bomb. The resort to
terrorism reveals the weakness of the
most extreme wing of the right, but this
shouldn’t fool us. The agenda of the right
continues to rule the day. Oklahoma City
was just the beginning.^

"Consolidating Neo-colonialism: the ATF disciplines angry white men.'

We Shut 'em Down:
Nazis Routed in St. Paul

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1995 • LOVE AND RAGE • PAGE 7

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Faculdade de Ciencias e Letras de Assis

20

28

FIGHTING FASCISM

Oklahoma City Bombing

(Continued from page 6)

Christian Right movements came together
to denounce the murders at Ruby Ridge.

'Peters' “Special Report,” published Beam’s
“Leaderless Resistance” text in its entirety.

Key racist and Patriot leaders who
attended the summit included anti-Semite,
Red Beckman; Aryan Nations leader, Louis
Beam; Aryan Nations founder, Richard
Butler; Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of
America; Christian Patriot leader, Frank
Isabel!; New Mexico Identity figure, Earl
Jones; and Charles A. Weisman, a racist
publisher and author whose book,
“America: Free, White and Christian,” is a
source for much of the Patriot movement’s
racialist theories of “state citizenship.”

Other key figures involved in the rise of
the Militia Movement who have been cen¬
tral players in the Pete Peters/Christian
Patriot network,, include retired Lt. Col.
James “Bo” Gritz and retired Phoenix
Police officer. Jack McLamb.

Gritz has gone on since the Estes Park
meeting to create what he terms “Specially
Prepared Individuals for Key Events” train¬
ing seminars or SPIKE teams. Gritz, who
denies that he is a racist, was the Populist
Party candidate for President in 1992.

The Populist Party was a political vehicle
for the far-right that was founded by anti-
Semitic publisher, Willis Carto, the director
of the Liberty Lobby. “The Spotlight,” the
Liberty Lobby’s flagship publication regu¬
larly features reports on the Militia
Movement as well as “exposes” on the cap¬
italist “New World Order.”

Jack McLamb is the director of an outfit
called Police Against The New World Order
(PATNWO). McLamb is a far-rightist and
author of “Operation Vampire Killer 2000,”
a book fillc(i with crack-pot conspiracism
and paranoia. However, the “mission” of
McLamb’s organization is the active
recruitment of police and military person¬
nel to far-right groups and organizations.
McLamb calls on police and the military to
aid the efforts of Christian Patriots, (for
further background on McLamb see,
“Patriot Games: Jack McLamb Et Citizen
Militias, 1994, Coalition for Human
Dignity, Portland, OR)

The fiery apocalypse visited on the
Branch Davidians by the FBI and the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
in Waco, Texas on April 19, 1993, only
fueled the paranoid conspiracism of the
far-right and further accelerated the rise of
the Militia Movement. According to pub¬
lished reports, the bombing of the
Oklahoma City federal building was meant
as a retaliatory strike by a Christian Patriot
militia cell for the destruction of the
Branch Davidians.

There is no justification on any level
whatsoever, for the hideous truck bomb¬
ing in Oklahoma City. However, the para¬
noid conspiracism of an armed militia cell
allegedly connected to the Michigan
Militia, was fueled in part, by the criminal
handling of the Branch Davidian stand¬
off in Waco. Failure to analyze the politi¬
cal, and what one can only term mytho¬
logical, underpinnings of Patriot ideology,
will only lead to confusion as to their
motives. While their terrorist act is repre¬
hensible, it was hardly the work of

“crazed” individuals. These were people
who were trained, organized and motivat¬
ed to carry out a monstrous act of politi¬
cal revenge.

THE MILITIA MOVEMENT

The origins of the contemporary Christian
Patriot and Militia Movement is racist and
fascist to the core. The fascistic political
views of Peters, Beckman, Gritz, Beam, the
Trochmann’s and McLamb are also key ide¬
ological components of “mainstream”
Militia groups.

The Michigan Militia was founded in April
1994, The key figures in the organization are
Rev. Norman Olsen,* a Baptist minister, abor¬
tion foe and ex-military man and “intelli¬
gence specialist,” Mark Koemke. According
to reports, the Michigan Militia is the largest
and best organized faction in the country. It
is claimed that approximately 12,000 people
are members of the Michigan Militia.

Koernke’s broadcasts originate from
Nashville, Tennessee and are carried by
shortwave radio station, WWCR, The
“Intelligence Report” is transmitted daily.
Transcripts appear regularly on the Internet;
posted by John DiNardo’s “The People’s
Spellbreaker” can be found on the following
Usenet newsgroups: <aIt.conspiracy>,
<talk,politics.guns>, <misc.survivalism>
^nd <alt.politics,usa.constitution>. The con¬
tent is a standard mix of far-right conspira¬
cy theories, reports of ubiquitous sightings
of “black helicopters,” and other sundry
items of interest to Christian Patriots.

Koernke travels around the country,
appearing at “Preparedness Expos,” and has
been a key popularizer of the Militia
Movement. The Michigan Militia, however,
is hardly the “mainstream” group that
Norman Olsen would have us believe.

When asked by reporters whether
McVeigh or Terry Lynn Nichols, who sur¬
rendered to federal authorities Friday in
Herington, Kansas, or his brother, James
Douglas Nichols, had any involvement with
the Michigan Militia, Commander Olsen
said: “Not that we know of.” Olsen also
denied that the Michigan Militia had any¬
thing to do with the Oklahoma bombing:
“We denounce the entire incident as an act
of barbarity. It’s totally alien to eveiything
we believe. We are totally defensive. We do
not engage in terrorism. We do not believe
in answering the tyrant brutality with more
brutality.” (Robert D. McFadden, “Links in
Blast: Armed ‘Militia’ And a Key Date, “New
York Timesf Saturday, April 22, 1995, p. 1)

Last year however, three members of the
Michigan Militia were arrested in Fowlerville,
25 miles east of Lansing, Michigan’s capital,
after their car was found to contain “700
rounds of ammunition, loaded rifles, night-
vision goggles and other military-type gear.”
(David Willman, Richard A. Serrano, Ralph
Frammolino, Paul Feldman and Eric
Lichtblau, “Facing the Fear of an Enemy
From Within,” “Los Angeles Times,”
Saturday, April 22, 1995, p. 1)

While the three Michigan Militia mem¬
bers failed to appear for their arraignment,
“30 to 40” uniformed militia members did
show up in court. According to Fowlerville
chief of police, Gary Krause, the militiamen
taunted police with threats of future vio¬
lence. (Willman, et. al., ibid., p. A18)

MOM AND APPLE PIE

Another faction within the Christian Patriot
network with close ties to Olsen and
Koernke, is the Militia of Montana (MOM).
“Taking Aim,” MOM’s newsletter printed
the following announcement on the signifi¬
cance of April 19: “1, April 19, 1775:
Lexington burned; 2. April 19, 1943:
Warsaw burned; 3. April 19, 1992: The
fed’s attempted to raid Randy Weaver, but
had their plans thwarted when concerned
citizens arrived on the scene,with supplies
for the Weaver family totally unaware of
what was to take place; 4. April 19, 1993:
The Branch Davidians burned; 5. April 19,
1995: Richard Snell will be executed.”
(Robert D. McFadden, op. cit, p. 8)

Richard Snell was a white supremacist
member of the terrorist group, The Order,
executed in Arkansas recently, Snell had
murdered a black police officer and a Jewish
businessman a decade ago. MOM’s newslet¬
ter said Snell would be executed “unless we
act now!!!” While the article did not call for
violence to free Snell, the Trochmann family
are hardly strangers to the most extreme
factions of the white supremacist movement.

The Weaver shooting was the spark that
led to the formation of the Militia of
Montana. According to reports, in
September 1992, John Trochmann helped
found the United Citizens for Justice; a
support group for Randy Weaver. Another
steering committee member was Chris
Temple, a regular writer for the racist
newspaper, “Jubilee,” the flagship publica¬
tion of the Christian Identity movement
published in California. (Daniel Junas,
“Angry White Guys With Guns: The Rise of
the Militias,” “Covert Action Quarterly,”
Washington, D.C., Spring 1995, Number
52, p. 23)

While the Trochmann’s deny that they’re
white supremacists, in 1990, MOM com¬
mander, John Trochmann was a featured
speaker at Richard Butler’s Aryan Nations
compound in Hayden Lake, Idaho.
Trochmann has admitted traveling to the

white supremacist compound on at least
four or five occasions.

LEADERLESS RESISTANCE,
COORDINATED ACTION

If indeed Timothy McVeigh is connected to
the Michigarr Militia or any other far-right
paramilitary outfit, the nature of these orga¬
nizations contain within their essential struc¬
ture, the plausible deniability necessary to
protect leadership cadres from prosecution.

In this respect, Rev. Norman Olsen’s
denial of involvement in the murderous
bombing of the Oklahoma City federal
building may indeed be an accurate.
Leaderless resistance doctrine not only
seeks to immunize paramilitary leaders

from prosecution, but forge clandestine
relationships among cadres “who know
what to do” when the time is ripe.

Will the fall-out from this heinous act of
terror lead to the unraveling and destruction
of the Christian Patriot and white suprema¬
cist militia movement or will “true believers”
react to the situation through “a planned
response that will take many variations”?

One fact is certain—tens of thousands of
“angry white guys” have taken it upon
themselves to restore “the Crown Rights of
King Jesus,” by any means necessary.

Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights
750 La Playa#730
San Francisco, CA 94121
Office: (415) 252-0750 Fax: (415) 431-6523
E-mail: <tburghardt@igc.apc.org>

For Further Information:

Robert Crawford, S.L. Gardner, Jonathan
Mozzochi, R.L. Taylor, “The Northwest
Imperative: Documenting A Decade of
Hate,” 1994, Coalition For Human Dignity,
Portland, Oregon; Michael Novick, “Front
Man For Fascism: ‘Bo’ Gritz and the Racist
Populist Party,” 1993, People Against
Racist Terror (PART), P.O. Box 1990,
Burbank, CA 91507

The Unnamed Alliance

Shut ^em Down

(Continued from page 7)

know that a violent Nazi skinhead gang
was planning on having a concert to
recruit youth into their movement in their
neighborhood. Naturally, the vast majority
of people were very upset. We asked them
to call the club owner and their city coun-
cilmen to ask them to cancel the show.
Both numbers were flooded with hundreds
of calls the next day. It was also obvious
that many people wanted to take the streets
and actively demonstrate against the nazis,
so we called for a demonstration on the
night of the concert.

We arrived at the hall at 7:00 to find
over 200 angry community members
already there. By the time 30 meek nazi
skinheads entered the club to set up their
equipment, almost 400 activists and neigh¬
bors were jeering them, yelling “no room

for nazis in our neighborhood!” After a
couple hours, the mayor of St. Paul came
(along with about 75 riot cops) and told the
police to shut the show down. The nazis
were hustled into a police paddy wagon
and escaped through a back alley (but not
before neighborhood folks chased the
wagon and threw rocks at it!).

WE SHUT 'EM DOWN!

But it wasn’t the cops who shut the show
down, it was the demonstrators-communi-
ty members, ARA, punks; anarchists,
socialists, anti-racist skinheads, youth,
whites, people of color, queers, etc.—who
shut the show down. The mayor realized
he’d have to do something or else he’d have
one very angiy constituency to face. People
were already up in arms that the police
were escorting nazis into the club and

PAGE 8 • LOVE AND RAGE • AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1995

keeping community members away from it,
and at the amount of money wasted to pay
for police overtime to protect a violent
gang of white supremacists.

Although there were a few tensions
between activists from Minneapolis and
community residents, overall we worked
together well. Many people thanked ARA
for coming, saying that if it weren’t for
us they never would have known about
the concert and the threat to their com¬
munity.

WHO WERE THOSE NAZIS?

The show was organized by St. Paul’s own
Bound for Glory, one of the biggest nazi
bands in the country. Also scheduled to
play were two white power bands from
Wisconsin ahd one from Germany. Last
month. Bound for Glory played at a cele¬
bration for Adolph Hitler’s birthday in
Idaho, where militia members, Klansmen,
and nazi skinheads mingled. It is the poli¬
tics of bands like Bound for Glory that led
to the Oklahoma City bombing, and we
were having none of that in our city.

THIS IS NOT ABOUT FREE SPEECH

Contrary to what some people think, nazi
gigs are not simply expressions of unpopu¬
lar ideas and opinions that people are oblig¬
ated to respect, if not agree with. White
supremacists use these gigs as a place to
recruit alienated white youth into their
movement of racist violence and hatred.

This is a fact; white supremacists use the
veil of free speech to conceal it But we aren’t
fooled. We believe it is the responsibility of all
those who care about peace and justice to
exercise THEIR right to speak out against nazi
organizing, and to act to stop it when possible.

Apparently, the neighborhood agreed
with us. All in all, the day was a complete
success. Many nazis from around the coun¬
try couldn’t get maps to the show, and only
the bands and their roadies managed to
enter the hall before the gig got cancelled.
There was no violence and only two minor
arrests (both released that evening).

This was a total victory for anti-racist
forces in the Twin Cities.

THERE’S NO ROOM FOR NAZIS IN ANY
NEIGHBORHOOD! FIGHT RACISM!

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28

FIGHTING FASCISM

Human Life International -Your Name's a Lie!!!

BY Karl Small
uman Life International, a right-wing
Roman Catholic organization that
claims to be the largest anti-abortion
group in the world, received a rough wel¬
come in Montreal this April. Over a thou¬
sand supporters of the group were in town
for its 14th World Conference on “Love,
Life and the Family”; they were there to
network, socialize, and listen to right-vying
leaders in the battle against homosexuality,
contraception, religious tolerance, and, of
course, abortion. HLFs officials have been
noted for their anti-Semitism, Islamaphobia,
and intransigent approach to various issues
associated with human sexuality.

Anarchists in Montreal found out about
HLFs conference and the group’s links to
the far-right the same way others in this
city did, when a local entertainment news¬
paper published a pretty good article about

them way back in December. By February
an Ad Hoc Coalition against Human Life
International had been set up, largely at the
initiative of local feminist and leftist orga¬
nizations. Not only did this coalition orga¬
nize demonstrations against HLI, but some
of us found ourselves learning a lot about
the Catholic right in North America, too.
One result of this process is the urge to pass
on what was learnt, something I started try¬
ing to do with an article in the April/May
issue of Love and Rage about Human Life
International’s racist and homophobic
agenda. In this article I’ll try to deepen the
analysis a bit, and also describe exactly
what went down in Montreal. In the
process, perhaps a rough description of the
Quebec religious right can be made;
although this may not be of practical use to
anti-fascists living elsewhere in North
America, it is useful to acknowledge and
understand the way in which political
movements are not homogenous, but evolve
differently in different communities and
“nations.”

UNITE THE RIGHT

As vyas discussed in my previous article,
HLI is an international organization whose
claim to fame lies more in its ability to
bring together various right-wing social
movements than in its ability to mobilize
thousands of people to take to the streets.
Its publications are translated into several
languages, and are available in 56 coun¬
tries. It has the ability to “zap” a particular
country at a crucial moment, and hence
claims partial credit for defeating pro¬

choice legislation in Ireland and the
Philippines. Nevertheless, HLI remains an
essentially American organization, with
most of its branches being in the United
States, with its central headquarters in
Front Royal, Virginia. As one part of its
“movement building” strategy, HLI holds
annual international conferences that regu¬
larly bring together homophobic, anti-abor¬
tion and other activists from the right-wing
of the political spectrum. The 1995
Montreal conference is a good example of
HLI’s ability to tie the different issues
together. Over forty “pro-life leaders” gave
workshops on Catholic doctrine, the battle
against sex education, abortion, and the
scourge of feminism. There was a workshop
about “AIDS: The Unnecessary Epidemic”
by Dr. Stanley Monteith, an associate of the
John Birch Society who believes that there
is a conspiracy of gay activists and “sub¬

versive elements” to spread HIV and thus
weaken America. Father Winfrid Pietrik, an
official with the Christiliche Mittel political
party in Germany, was scheduled to speak
on “The Moslem Threat to the World,” a
talk that was eventually canceled due to the
bad publicity it attracted. Randall Terry,
founder of Operation Rescue and an official
in the pro-militia US Taxpayers Party,
spoke at the conference’s closing banquet,
where he announced his plans to run for
President, and asked conference-goers for
contributions.

While HLI’s speakers talked about a wide
range of issues, they all approached these
from a similar perspective, and came to simi¬
lar conclusions. According to this strand of
the right, what is commonly referred to as
“the modern world” is one big disaster.
Catholic rightists generally trace the origins
of this disaster back to the French
Revolution, known for its slogan “brother¬
hood, equality, liberty” and radical secular¬
ism. The “spread” of homosexuality, godless¬
ness, sexual permissiveness, contraception,
and abortion is often described as symptoms
and evidence of the modem world’s decay.
Whatever front they may be working on,
HLI’s leaders and allies are anything but
superficial, single-issue busy-bodies.

Despite its anti-modern approach, this is
no simple throwback to the Middle Ages.
From its veiy inception, the entire religious
right has been firmly grounded in the high-
tech realities of the late twentieth century.
HLI was first based in the offices of the Free
Congress Foundation, and over the years
has developed ties to various other new
right organizations. As a part of this politi¬

cal tendency, HLI is part of a network of
religious organizations well funded by cer¬
tain millionaires and corporations (such as
Coors and Domino’s Pizza) and tied in to
the military-industrial complex. (For
instance, members of the Catholic right
were important players within the World
Anti-Communist League.)

ROUGHEST RECEPTION EVER

Other than us protesters, HLI had two major
disadvantages in Montreal. The first was the
mainstream media: alerted by Jewish orga¬
nizations like the Canadian Jewish Congress
and B’nai B’rith Canada, local Journalists
forced HLI to answer charges of misogyny
and racism long before their conference
actually began. Secondly, as an American,
reactionary, religious organization, HLI was
on unfriendly ground in Quebec. This

Canadian province was itself ruled by an
unholy alliance of almost fascist clergy and
demagogic politicians, a period which is
referred to as “the great darkness.” The end
of this period in the 1960s coincided with
the rise of a progressive nationalist move¬
ment which, buoyed by a nascent French
Quebecois business class, completely
rearranged the province’s class structure
and gave it the reputation of being one of
the most laid back places in Canada. This
new Quebec business class was urban, mod¬
em and, most of all, technocratic in nature,
so it is not surprising that the society that
fifty years previously saw its duty as being
to spread Pope-worship throughout North
America came to “lose its Catholic soul,” to
quote HLI’s Father Marx.

HLI kept hitting all the wrong buttons. In
response to charges of anti-Semitism, the
organization got over forty right-wing Jews
to sign an advertisement placed in the
Montreal Gazette, protesting that such
accusations were “preposterous.” If any of
the signatories were from Canada, they cer¬
tainly aren’t very prominent, and their mes¬
sage was completely out of synch with the
Canadian Jewish community. The cultural
chasm in political style was further evi¬
denced when HLI held a press conference
and paraded a couple of Jewish supporters
who accused B’nai B’rith of supporting the
pornography and, indirectly, drug indus¬
tries, and who defended HLI’s Father Paul
Marx, stating that everything he says about
Jews is true. (Marx has repeatedly accused
Jews of leading a “holocaust” against
unborn babies, and of being responsible for
the spread of sex education and contracep¬

tives around the world.) Such an approach
helped to further discredit the organization
in the eyes of most Montrealers.

So it wasn’t such a surprise to see a large
crowd come to protest outside of HLI’s
opening Mass on April 19th. Over 4,000
people came out to demonstrate, many of
them having traveled from Ottawa,
Sherbrooke, and Toronto. There was a
strong youth and queer presence at this
protest, many anarchists and communists,
as well as lots of people who hadn’t ever
attended a demonstration before. As the HLI
members filed out of Notre Dame Basilica
for a candlelight march to their hotel, the
crowd surged towards the police barricades,
and several people started throwing bottles,
picket signs, and fruit. Once the HLIars had
walked safely to their hotel, under the pro¬
tection of Montreal’s riot police the whole
way, tlje demonstrators were allowed to fol¬
low. There, at the hotel, there was a lot of
pushing and shoving, and quite a few peo¬
ple got smashed with police batons. A few
punks managed to trash a police vam an
act that was expanded both in the local
media and in anarchist gossip circles to the
level of a “riot.” Later in the evening, sever¬
al dozen demonstrators were shoved and
chased for an hour through the streets of
downtown Montreal, and a half-dozen peo¬
ple were arrested.

As they left town several days later.
Father Marx stated that his group had never
before received such a rough reception. In
terms of mass mobilization and education,
the Ad Hoc Coalition had succeeded. Not
only was there visible opposition to HLI,
but through the local media the group’s far-
right agenda was properly exposed.
However, the credit cannot all go to the
Montreal feminist/left scenes. We were
lucky that Planned Parenthood
International had researched HLI for over a
year, and was willing to share their infor¬
mation with us. And as has already been
mentioned, HLI picked the wrong city to
target if they wanted to drum up local sup¬
port for their cause. Provincialism and a
liberal popular culture conspired to set peo¬
ple against the group. Even when .they did
try to appeal to Quebecois nationalism, by
lamenting the low birthrate amongst “pure”
French Canadians for instance, they made
these statements in English.

NOT QUITE GETTING IT RIGHT

Just because the Ad Hoc Coalition’s goal of
showing public opposition to HLI was
accomplished, doesn’t mean that the
process was without flaws, nor that it
should have represented the limits of what
the local left would cany out. The active
opposition to HLI was limited by a strong
desire to keep everything centered around
the issue of women’s reproductive rights.

(Continued to pagelO)

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1995 • LOVE AND RACE • PACE 9

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FIGHTING FASCISM

Human Life???

(Continued from page 9)

There was a strong desire on the part of
many organizers that only women be
authorized to make public statements, lead
the demonstration in chants, or address the
crowd. The poster advertising the April
19th demonstration included a third of a
page of text describing HLI’s politics; only
one sentence dealt with the issues of racism
and homophobia. At a public information
night about HLI, not one gay man was
invited to speak. Indeed, if the representa¬
tive from B’nai BVith had not made a point
of bringing up HLI’s homophobia, it would
hardly have been mentioned.

This all points to a misunderstanding on
the part of many activists about the reli¬
gious-right, anti-abortion movement. Despite

were some Canadian delegates who should
be introduced. Donald DeMarco, a Catholic
philosopher from Ontario, spoke on “The
Eclipse of Fatherhood.” DeMarco believes
that the time may not be right for killing
abortionists, yet maintains that it is “possi¬
ble as an individual before God” to do such
things. Another speaker was Father
Alphonse deValk, the editor of Catholic
Insight, a right-wing magazine from
Toronto, and a longtime Canadian advisor
to HLI. DeValk is known for his calls for a
politicized clergy, and for his accusation
that Ontario Premier Bob Rae is a pawn of
Jewish intellectuals. Workshops were also
given by Jim Hughes and Gilles Grondin of
Campaign Life Canada (CLC) and its provin¬
cial affiliate, Campagne Quebec-Vie. Over
the past several years, the Campaign Life

Punx vs HLI

their hoopla about being relatively apolitical
yet moral citizens united in opposition to the
mass murder of unborn children, most key
activists and ideologues in the anti-choice
movement have a political agenda that goes
far beyond any one issue. One section of the
right-wing .is clearly gambling that opposi¬
tion to abortion is the correct vehicle to
bring their politics to power. Although the
movemenfs leaders are genuinely opposed to
abortion, they are more than willing to shift
the focus of their politics to other issues if
this proves expedient. Furthermore, were
they to completely roll back women’s rights,
they would nevertheless continue politicking
until several other groups had been “put in
their place” too.

Not all local activists understood this,
and so the Ad Hoc Coalition paid too little
attention to doing making alliances with
local Jewish, Moslem, and queer communi¬
ties. Luckily, Jewish and queer activists
picked up some of this slack, producing
their own posters and pamphlets exposing
HLTs menace. Queers organized a separate
demonstration against HLTs homophobic
agenda on April 22, the night Randall Terry
addressed the conference’s closing banquet.
About 400 people attended this demonstra¬
tion, bringing attention to Terry’s belief that
gays and lesbians should be put to death.

THE CANADIAN RIGHT

While the majority of delegates to HLI’s
Montreal lovefest were Americans, there

Coalition has published several articles by
members of Canada’s fascist movement in
the pages of its newspaper, The Interim.
Another CLC leader who spoke was Louis
DiRocco, who also happens to be the former
leader of Ontario’s Family Coalition Party, a
“pro-life, pro-family” fringe-right grouping.

Despite HLI’s failure to set up a Montreal
beachhead, one cannot ignore the existence
of a far-right Catholic milieu in Quebec.
This was brought home by the surprise
speech by Maurice Prevost, a councilor
with the local Montreal Catholic School
Commission (MCSC), at the conference. I
should mention that there are a Catholic
and a Protestant school board in Montreal,
and these run most of the city’s public
schools. Parents send their children to a
school less on the basis of religion than on
the basis of language, the Catholic commis-
sion being primarily French and the
Protestant commission being mainly
English. As such, the Catholic School
Commission is the most important public
school board on the island of Montreal.

Prevost is a commissioner with the
Regroupement Scolaire Confessionel (RSC), a
conservative religious party which controlled
the MCSC until last November, when it was
forced to enter into a coalition with a splin¬
ter party in order to stave off the more popu¬
lar and progressive Mouvement pour une
Ecole Ouverte. (It should be noted that less
than 40% of eligible voters came out on
election day.) As the party in control of the
MCSC for over ten years, the RSC is respon¬

sible for the fact that there is still a specifi¬
cally Catholic school board, as well as for its
46% drop-out rate. The RSC has repeatedly
dabbled in xenophobia and racism during its
reign. For instance, in 1990 its chairman,
Michel Pallascio, suggested to the provincial
government that it favor immigrants with
“Judeo-Christian values,” In 1988, it fired a
Chilean-born employee because of his
Spanish accent. The next year, it sent parents
a questionnaire that asked whether immi¬
grant children should be forced to go to sep¬
arate schools. In 1990 the board considered a
proposal to punish youth and children who
spoke languages other than French on school
grounds. Following last November’s school
board elections, it was revealed that one of
the RSC’s candidates was also a member of
the Mouvement pour une immigration
restreinte et francophone (Movement for
restricted and French immigration)—a small
racist organization; although this candidate
was not elected, Pallascio nevertheless saw
fit to defend him, explaining that he did not
care if some of his members views were not
“politically correct.”

Prevost, on the other hand, was elected
to the MCSC last November, and his views
are also anything but “politically correct.”
Originally scheduled to discuss a high
school within his district, the school com¬
missioner interspersed his speech with
xenophobic and queer-baiting remarks.
Expounding on a well-worn theme of HLI
supporters, Prevost said that “People are
adopting from other countries, so our own
blood and our own religion are being
aborted... Let’s not be afraid of words: we
can truly speak of a holocaust in Quebec...
We are at the doors of hell.”

In subsequent articles in Voir, Montreal’s
French-language entertainment newspaper,
Prevost was also revealed as being the trea¬
surer of the Centre d’information nationale
Robert Rumilly (CINRR). This far-right dis¬
cussion group is named after a famous
Quebec historian and reactionary, who
played an important role in getting Nazi
collaborators from Vichy France into
Quebec after World War II. The CINRR
holds “breakfast lectures” at the Wandlyn
Inn in Montreal’s East End, where you can
go to listen to luminaries such as Jean-
Claude Dupuis, a key member of another
openly fascist group, the Cercle Jeune
Nation. Not surprisingly, the CINRR’s secre¬
tary is pastor Achille Larouche, a fascist
cleric from Quebec’s Eastern Townships
area who has also worked closely with the
Cercle Jeune Nation over the past ten years.

Cercle Jeune Nation, the CINRR, and vari¬
ous groups of Achille Larouche’s make up the
pro-fascist Catholic right in Quebec. Although
they do occasionally work with far-right
groups in English-speaking North America,
this numerically small section of the fascist
movement looks more towards France for
ideological and spiritual guidance. In an iron¬
ic twist, several members of Jeune Nation
claim to have been inspired by the Groupe de
Recherches et Etudes sur la Civilization
Europeenne, an anti-Christian, pro-pagan,
highbrow, fascist movement in Europe. At the
same time, the group is very close to
Lefebvrist Catholic tendency. These true
believers follow the example of Marcel
Lefebvre, a French bishop who broke with the
Vatican, viewing it as having been taken over
by heretics and traitors ever since the famous
Vatican II reforms. Jeune Nation likes to see
itself as the intellectual powerhouse of the
Quebecois far-right, and tries to maintain

HLInfo

%1 titit \k doimant between

woHd conferences. In ficU it
oJds workshops across the Uaitetl
States every few weeks. That % when Its
leaders are not fiymg around the: world
pushing their repressive agenda. In early
June HO held an Eastern European regional
conference in Kiev, the capital of Dkralne,^

8 mf^ J

. Oct2S‘7l>

Madras^ tmfia ' ,

" . Clnciww^Olao ^ ^ '

' If you want more infOTmation on HLIt
feel free to phone them* laekilyk. you
don't have to pay tong distance chaises,
as idtey have a toll free uumherl So dial
(ftom a pay phone, of course)

$43 X and listen to the good news!

Or, If you want to get In touch with m
antirHLl folks, you can write:

H2XaT3 Canada

friendly ties with other “patriotic French-
Canadian” organizations. The group recently
endured a split: two founding members went
off to found a more politically-oriented and
less religiously stringent fascist group.

This religious section of the Quebec far
right would probably be much closer to
HLI if it were not for its extreme xeno¬
phobia and distrust of all things

(Continued to page 11)

PACE 10 • LOVE AND RAGE * AUCUST/SEPTEMBER1995

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28

Photo: Carolyn

Human Life

(Continued from page 10)

American. This said, it has some contact
with fascists in English-speaking
America. For example, Gilles Grondin, a
veteran of the Montreal fascist milieu and
a founding member of Jeune Nation, has
written two booklets for Citizens for
Foreign Aid Reform (C-FAR), a Toronto-
based, suit-and-tie fascist group that was
close to the World Anti-Communist
League during the 1980s. Grondin’s writ¬
ings deal with the threats posed to
Quebec by Vietnamese communists and
other immigrants. Tellingly, this “patriotic
French-Canadian” had no difficulty work¬
ing with a group like C-FAR, which is an
important ally of the anti-French racists
in the Alliance for the Preservation of
English in Canada, a constant source of
anti-Quebec propaganda.

What differentiates the Catholic hard
right from the rest of the right-wing is its
intellectual obsession with various historic
Church documents, an opposition to mod¬
ernism, and a paranoia about Masonic
conspiracies which frequently belies an
intense anti-Semitism. These Catholic fas¬
cists make common cause with “pro-life”
groups like Human Life International. For
instance, the only person who wrote a let¬
ter to the editor in defense of Prevost’s
views was Louis Lecompte, a past president

of Montreal Pro-Life who had recently
announced that he was going to set up a
program to “cure” homosexuality in
Montreal. Also, the newspaper of
Campagne Quebec Vie has published con¬
spiratorial “exposes” about Freemasons
and other “secret forces” out to destroy the
Catholic Church. It has also advertised
events having little to do with the question
of fetal life, for instance the 1991 tour of
Quebec by Arnaud de Lassus and Admiral
Michel Berger, two leaders of the French
far right. This tour, significantly enough,
was organized by the CINRR with the help
of Jeune Nation.

The Catholic right is not limited to
Quebec. In fact, the most putrid stall
inside HLI’s literature room belonged to
an Ontario bookstore, The Angeius Books
of Barrie. At this stall I managed to pick
up a copy of the Baron de Lassus’ book
Connaissance Elementaire de la Franc-
Maconnerie (Elementary Knowledge about
Freemasonry), where I read about how
Freemasonry is really synonymous with
Judaism, The Angelus’s catalog says that
it also distributes Jeune Nation’s maga¬
zine, as well as publications from the
Canadian League of Rights, a clearing¬
house for conspiratorial. Holocaust-revi¬
sionist, and anti-communist reading mate-
' rials. The Angeius stall was manned by
John Cotter, the author of several books
which have been distributed and pub¬
lished by groups like the League of Rights,
Women United For the Faith, and Citizens
for Foreign Aid Reform.

EXPOSING ALLIANCES

This article is not meant to be a thorough
expose of the Catholic hard right in Quebec.
However, by showing the links between the
local anti-abortion people, local fascists, and
the Human Life International apparatus, I

hope to haye provided examples of the kind
of alliances that religious fanaticism and
fascism can create. It is increasingly clear
that anti-fascism demands that we not limit
ourselves to Nazi skinheads, but rather start
dealing with these more respectable, yet
equally evil, proponents of fascism, ★

Means of Saving Mumia

(Continued from page 1)

underhanded tricks that were used to put
Mumia on death row in the first place.

But on its own, the legal campaign
would be doomed to fail, as it did the first
time around. What gives the legal cam¬
paign half a chance is a militant mass
movement in the streets demanding what
seems to be the impossible-that Mumia not
just get a new trial in the amerikkkan
kourts, but that Mumia should be freed
immediately and unconditionally. We
think that state authority is illegitimate—
especially the authority of the white
supremacist US government over the colo¬
nized Black community. We agree with the
Black Panther platform that called for
release of all Black people held in US pris¬

ons, since the US government should have
no Jurisdiction over them in the first place.

Love 8t Rage members, and many other
anarchists, have been involved in the cam¬
paign to free Mumia Abu-Jamal for years.
And since the death warrant was signed in
June, we have been even more heavily
involved in building local coalitions in
many cities, including Minneapolis, New
York, DC, Milwaukee, Bay Area, Lansing,
State College, and others.

We build these local coalitions because
we want to help build a mass movement
that goes beyond the control of any single
organization. We seek to build a non-sec¬
tarian, democratic, and multinational
movement. The local coalitions which have
arisen to free Mumia usually include people
with a variety of revolutionary and pro¬

gressive perspectives and programs' We
think this is a good thing. Our vision of
revolution is a pluralist one, in which many
organizations and people combine our
efforts to topple the system. The Free
Mumia coalitions give us a glimpse at the
problems and possibilities of a revolution¬
ary pluralist movement.

Within the mass movement, we work for
a direct action strategy. While mass educa¬
tional work, the legal campaign, and peace¬
ful protests are all crucial, we believe the
power we have to affect this situation lies in
direct action, or “uncivil” disobedience. We
believe that the Pennsylvania state authori¬
ties do their best to act in their own politi¬
cal interests, to preserve and expand their
power and control. Clearly they see it in
their interests to execute Mumia Abu-
Jamal. We have to make it more in their
interests to NOT kill Mumia Abu- Jamal.
This will only happen if the result of killing
Mumia is a loss of political power and
social control. In other words, if people see
the execution of Mumia as so illegitimate
and unfair (like the beating of Rodney King)
that it creates the possibility of urban upris¬
ings or at least organized creative actions
and uncivil disobedience and protests.

In that regard, we were involved with
and very supportive of the torchlight march
in San Francisco where 300 people were
arrested, the protest in Minneapolis where
11 people were arrested, as well as many
smaller actions like banner hangings, street
theaters, town meetings, and marches.

We feel this is the directions things need to
go-a rapid yet patient escalation of tactics.
The patient work of coalition-building,
education, mass outreach, and peaceful
protests must all be done. Within that con¬
text, we support taking things to the next
level in every city.

Some people criticize a direct action strat¬
egy, saying it will just make us look like
fanatical supporters of a cop killer, which
they say plays into the hands of the state.

They might argue that instead, we
should present a “respectable” image and
only focus on the demand for a new trial,
working to get it through peaceful means .
This could bring in more liberals and high-
profile people, which will win us more sup¬
port and get Mumia off death row.

We don’t think we should let the state
limit how we struggle. In fact raising the
stakes is the very thing that will cause more
liberals to speak out. The torchlight march
in San Francisco shows this clearly—before
that, not many people there even knew who
Mumia Abu-Jamal was. Afterward, every¬
one who watches or listens to the news
there at least knew about him, and Mumia
support meetings grew dramatically.

Similarly, the targeting of the National
Association of Black Journalists for not
supporting Mumia has caused their presi¬
dent to support Mumia in a Washington
Post editorial.

Two recent protests at Judge Sabo’s
house (including 11 arrests) clearly irked
him and caused him to act even more irra¬
tionally in the court, further discrediting
himself and the prosecution’s case. This

has caused even the Philadelphia Daily
News to call for Sabo to be removed from
the case, and the Inquirer to harshly criti¬
cize Sabo’s conduct. And the news cover¬
age of Mumia in Philadelphia seemed to
change for the better after the Daily News
and Inquirer were the targets of protests on
June 5, Direct action ft confrontation, in
an escalating context, will not alienate lib¬
erals, but will alert more people to the issue
and cause more moderates to speak out,
while also foreshadowing the possibility of
broader social unrest.

By advocating direct action, we under¬
stand that this will lead to run-ins with the
police. We need to prepare for that. So
far, all the people arrested in Mumia sup¬
port demos have been released fairly quick¬
ly. We need to be ready to support all who
put themselves on the line for Mumia. This
is especially true in the prisons. As the
execution date approaches, the possibility
of uprisings and other disturbances in the
prisons increases. We need to remember
that the killing of George Jackson by the
prison system in the 1970s led to mass
protests inside the prisons, and was a lead¬
ing factor in the huge Attica uprising in
1971. Our movement needs to be ready to
support those on the outside who protest
for Mumia, as well as those in prison who
may rise up. The repression inside will be
much greater, and we must work to expose
and stop such repression, and support the
prisoners who protest, if it does occur.

A direct action strategy must include
mass outreach, especially among oppressed
and alienated youth. We need to reach out
broadly and boldly, saying “if Mumia dies,
fire in the skies.” We should be at every hip
hop concert and youth cultural event with
information on Mumia Abu-Jamal. While
we can’t “organize” a spontaneous uprising,
we should lay the educational foundations
and open up the possibilities for people to
react in a way they find appropriate.

. In the work we do supporting Mumia,
we should emphasize the issues of police
brutality, and the prison system in gener¬
al. We should make connections with
local anti-police brutality coalitions, and
local prison reform and prisoner support
groups. The relationships we build in
these coalitions create the possibility of
ongoing coalitions against police brutality
ft prisons. We need to consciously strive
to create those connections so that we
come out of this movement stronger than
when we started.

[This statement was written by members of
the Prison Abolition Working Group, which is a
project of the Love ft Rage Revolutionary
Anarchist Federation. We work for the creation
of a new society without prisons.' We work
toward that today by supporting political prison¬
ers and prisoners of war, and educating the pub¬
lic about the inherent brutality of prisons. For
more information, or if you'd like to get involved,
contact the Love and Rage Prison Abolition
Working Group, PO Box 77432, Washington, DC
20013.

See the Prison Working Group's other draft
statement on page 17.]

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1995 • LOVE AND RAGE • PAGE 11

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Faculdade de Cienclas e Letras de Assis

• • •

Live from Death Row

. BY W. Schweitzer

espite several attempts to suppress it,
Mumia Abu-Jamal’s book Live from
Death Row, has finally appeared.
First, the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) and
the Pennsylvania prison department tried to
prevent any publisher from considering it.
When this was unsuccessful, they tried to
seize the $30,000 advance that publisher
Addison-Wesley gave to Mumia for work on
the book. And when this was unsuccessful,
the FOP moved to pressure local school
boards, especially Pennsylvania, to boycott
the publisher’s textbooks.

It was another act of censorship, this
time successful, which got the idea of the
book rolling in the first place. Two years
ago Mumia had contracted with National
Public Radio’s (NPR) “All Things
Considered” to do monthly commentaries
from Pennsylvania’s death row. However,
when the FOP found out, it went into hys¬
teria, Sen. Bob Dole threatened to revoke
NPR’s funding, and on May 15 last year
NPR canceled the commentaries. Many now
appear in the book.

Why the fuss? In the first plkce, there is
the reason that Mumia is on death row: He
was convicted of killing a cop. No matter
that the trial in Philadelphia was a railroad
job. And no matter that his appeal extend¬
ed the railroad to the Pacific Coast. This
has been documented elsewhere.

Bef'. h' ;r' . 1 , Muniia was a
hiladelphia ra lo Journalist known as the
“Voice of the Voiceless.” He was a ibrmer
Black Panther who took on the stuffed
shirts of the Philadelphia corporate world
and exposed the racism and brutality of the
Philadelphia Police Department and its
commissioner, ex-mayor and lie-detector
flunky Frank Rizzo.

So naturally the Philadelphia FOP would
like to see Mumia dead. This is by the way,
the same Fraternal Order of Police that had
as two of its top officers men who were
convicted this spring of embezzling money
from their own organization.

It is also the same Fraternal Order of
Police whose national office would like to
believe that an officer’s life is more precious
than othet* people’s. Accordingly, the
national FOP every year organizes a memo¬
rial service for all police officers slain in the
line of duty, such as Daniel Faulkner, whom
Mumia is accused of shooting. It was at this
memorial service this year in Washington
that a large number of cops showed how

little they thought even of their fellow cops,
let alone civilians, by going on a two-day
drunken binge and brawl. .

Second, while on death row, Mumia has
continued to expose the racism and brutali¬
ty of the entire criminal justice (?!) system.
Much of the book is devoted to that. Again
and again he goes back to the case of
McCleskey v. Kemp (1987). In that case the
Supreme Court admitted that volumes of
statistical evidence on the racism of the
death penalty in Georgia were valid, but
consciously ignored it in upholding the
death sentence on McCleskey, As Justice
Powell argued: “McCleskey’s claim, taken
to its logical conclusion, throws into seri¬
ous question the princii-Jes that underlie
our entire criminal justice system.”

“Precisely,” responds Mumia.

Mumia draws the parallel between
McCleskey and the infamous Dred Scott deci¬
sion of 1857. The racism has not changed.
What the Supreme Court judicially estab¬
lished 140 years ago-that Black people are
inferior and have jio rights-is defended in
McCleskey because to change it would throw
“into serious question the principles that
underlie our entire criminal justice system.”

Mumia opens the chapter with a quotation
from Dostoyevsky: “The degree of civiliza¬
tion can be judged by entering the prisons.”
Mumia elaborates with several stories of pris¬
oners being beaten for minor infractions, and
always for general intimidation. But such
beatings don’t occur every day, or even
eveiy week. They are the visible bloom of the
mold, the body of which run through the
day-to-day rot of the whole system. Every
day there is the lockdown, the two-hour-a-
day (or less) exercise in an oversized dog
cage, the absence of contact with loved ones,
‘the lack of (or deliberate withholding of)
educational opportunities, the incompetent
or malfeasant medical care, etc. etc. If the
rystem doesn’t physically bash one’s body, it
surely is designed to corrode slowly into rust
particles, one’s spirit and will to live.

And this penitential rot is a growth
industry in the US. The USA incarcerates a
higher proportion of its people than any
other industrial country in the world. The
California prison system, for one, grew
500% in the last 20 years to become the
largest in the world. And Black people, who
make up 11% of the population, account
for 40% of the prisoners on US death rows.

The situation reminds this writer of a visit
several years ago to the memorial, at

Dachau, of another rotten society. Dachau
was one of the first Nazi concentration
camps, and the text in the museum there
today describes in some detail how the camp
grew to immense proportions, and how
many people made prosperous careers out of
it, while millions of prisoners were brutal¬

ized, “experimented” upon and murdered.

For a large segment of the US popula¬
tion, especially the Black segment, the real¬
ity that was Dachau is not too far from
home. Mumia’s book, the title of which
affirms his will to live despite being locked
in a US Dachau, exposes this reality. ★

Liberate Mark Cook

By Ed Mead

am going to write a little bit about my
imprisonment, and in doing so I hope to
express to you the twisted logic that
enables me to be out here in minimum cus¬
tody (on the streets) while Mark Cook is
still in prison today.

When I first went to prison I was put in
the hole in the penitentiary at Walla Walla,
Wash. From that incarceration grew a
group of resistors who became known as
the Walla Walla Brothers. That resistance
culminated in an institution-wide work
strike that lasted for 47 days. Of the 14
demands presented to the administration,
first on the list was a rectification of the
brutal conditions and treatment of prison¬
ers in the segregation unit.

The strike at Walla Walla was a major
news story in 1977, with television and
newspaper coverage every day. In all of that
daily coverage by the bourgeois media, how¬
ever, not once did a prisoner or even some¬
one representing the prisoners get a single
inch of print space, or a second of air time
on the Seattle television stations. Then, on
the 43rd day of the strike, the George
Jackson Brigade placed bombs in safety
deposit boxes in two Rainier bank branches
located in the affluent Bellevue community.
The Brigade issued a communique that
pointed out the interlocking directorship
between the Raineer Bank and the Seattle
Times, it unmasked the biased coverage of
the Seattle Times and other media outlets,
explained how they presented only the

state’s point of view of this struggle, and the
Brigade promised to continue bombing
Raineer Banks until such time as the Seattle
Times at least made a pretense of evenhand-
edness in its coverage of the struggle at
Walla Walla. Within days of the adoption of
a new perspective by the news media, the
public’s sympathies had changed. This was
because the Seattle Times finally interviewed
a prisoner. The statewide change in con¬
sciousness was so drastic that it quickly
resulted in the firing of Harold Bradley, the
boss of Washington’s Department of
Corrections, as well ^s Walla Walla’s warden,
B.J. Rhay. Lesser figures, like the associate
warden of custody, were transferred to dif¬
ferent prisons within the state. And the Walla
Walla Brothers were released to the prison’s
general population, where they went on to
organize Men Against Sexism and other
work on the inside. The strike at Walla Walla
was the longest in state history. The winning
of that struggle represents the application of
armed struggle at its best. We are not about
that form of liberalism any more.

There were other struggles at Walla Walla,
and much trouble, too. The end result of it
was that I was placed in the hole with several
comrades in connection with an armed
escape attempt. From within the segregation
unit my friends and I tried to escape again,
and we were waging constant battles with
our captors. During one such battle guards
shoved a riot baton up Carl Harp’s ass, caus¬
ing a 5/8 -inch tear in the wall of his rectum.
No guard was ever charged, although some

lost their jobs for a little while before they
were put back to work in the segregation
unit and elsewhere within the prison.

The prison administration was quite
anxious to get rid of my friends and me.
Some years later, through documents
obtained through the Freedom of
Information Act, I learned why I am out of
prison today. The state contacted the feder¬
al government about sending me and some
of their other troublesome prisoners to the
US Prison at Marion, Ill. As it happened,
however, the Seventh Circuit Court of
Appeals, the Court that has jurisdiction
over Marion Prison, in a case involving a
Hawaiian state prisoner, had just held that
the feds are not in the rent-a-prison busi¬
ness for the states, and that they can no
longer accept state prisoners from other
jurisdictions. The feds told Washington
prison officials how to circumvent this rul¬
ing. They said if you write the US Attorney
and ask him to get the federal court to run
Mead’s federal and state time together,
concurrently, then they could ship me to
Marion as a federal prisoner. That’s what
they did. The federal appeals court ruling
was soon overturned, but in that small
window of time my sentencing structure
had changed. Within five months, while
taking part in a hunger strike by all segre¬
gation prisoners at Marion, I was given
back to the custody of the state of
Washington. From Marion I went to vari¬
ous other state prisons in other states, and
ultimately back to Washington. In
Washington I stayed at the prison in Morn,
where I served the next 10 years.

While I was in exile I filed a Motion to
Correct an illegal sentence in Seattle’s fed¬

eral court. I successfully contended that my
30 year sentence for bank robbery was ille¬
gal because the court cannot give me con¬
secutive terms for armed bank robbery (25
years) and being armed during the commis¬
sion of a federal felony (five years). While
my federal time was cut from 30 to 25
years, the Federal Bureau of Prisons was
not informed of this fact. Thus they always
told the state that my federal release date
was five years longer than it actually was.
In April 1993 the state parole board gave
me the two-year administrative review all
long-timers receive. As always, they had
unceremoniously continued my case for
another two years, meaning the soonest I
would have a parole hearing, not even a
parole hearing but another administrative
review, was in April 1995. I did not have a
defense committee, but I did have a circle
of good friends. I filed a clemency petition
and these friends wrote letters on my
behalf. My attorney said word about my
case, about why I was in prison for so long,
got to the governor and he suggested that
the board review my case. Whatever the
reason, I was promptly given an unsched¬
uled and unrequested in-person parole
hearing and released to my federal detain¬
er. The state thought I had that extra five
years to serve with the feds.

Upon arriving at a federal prison I pre¬
sented the applicable officials with a certi¬
fied copy of the court order cutting my
sentence by five years, and after every
effort to drag the process out, the feds
released me a little over a year ago. I was
given a plane ticket and some shabby

(Continued to page 21)

PAGE 12 • LOVE AND RAGE • AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1995

23456789

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Faculdade de Ciencias e Letras de Assis

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 2 !

Enough's Enough

BY JOEL OF THE ANTI-FaSCIST

Defense Committee
ver heard of the right to “a fair and
speedy trial”? Well, the state of
Minnesota hasn’t. Nineteen months
after being falsely charged for assaulting a
neo-nazi skinhead, Minneapolis anti-racist
activist Kieran Frazier Knutson is still wait¬
ing for a chance to tell his story to a jury.

It all started way back on Oct. 22, 1993,
at an anti-racist demonstration at the

New ABC

BY Brad Sigal
n May 6-7, there was a conference
organized by three ABC collectives-
Claustrophobia ABC from DC,
Nightcrawlers ABC from NY, and New
Jersey ABC. The conference was hosted by
Claustrophobia ABC in DC, and was also
attended by members of Baltimore ABC,
4th World ABC from New Jersey, and other
anarchist prison activists from
Pennsylvania and New York.

The purpose of the conference was to
solidify a new regional ABC federation that
had informally begun with the three sponsor¬
ing collectives in Dec. 1994. We left the con¬
ference with unforeseen results, well beyond
what we had initially set out to achieve.

We decided against forming a regional
federation, instead opening it up to any
ABC groups in North America who agree
with our federation’s politics and criteria
for membership. Instead of basing our
membership on a particular region, we
united on common political activities and a
structure to accomplish it. There are ABC
groups in our region who will not partici¬
pate in this federation because of differ¬
ences of opinion about the politics and
structure of such an ABC federation. So in
actuality this federation would not include
all the groups from our region anyway,
such as Brooklyn ABC or 4th World ABC.

A Discussion Bulletin was produced about
a month prior to the conference, which
included 2 proposals for how to build ABC.
One proposed by Nightcrawlers was fairly

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-Kieran Update

University of Minnesota. Kieran was work¬
ing security when two known Northern
Hammer nazi skinheads, Daniel Simmer
and Amy Forman, showed up. Kieran and
others approached Simmer and Forman, but
before the nazi couple could be asked to
leave. Simmer pulled something shiny out
of his pocket and lunged at Kieran. Kieran,
thinking it was a knife, thwacked Simmer
with a flashlight, and a fight broke out.
Simmer got the short end of the stick.

At the rally, university police arrested
Simmer and seized his shiny object, which
turned out to be a pair of brass knuckles.
The cops immediately let Simmer go, and
six weeks later Kieran found out he was
charged with two counts of felony assault.
He faces up to 10 years in prison and
$20,000 in fines if convicted.

THE STATE IS AFTER
OUR RIGHTS (AGAIN)

This story is yet another outrageous, enrag¬
ing, but all-too-normal case of the state
taking sides with nazis, right? Well, yes,
but there’s a twist. This time, state prosecu¬
tors aren’t just after Kieran; they’re also out
to establish a legal precedent that would
make the media act as an arm of the state.
Prosecutors want to force the university
newspaper to give up photos they took of
the demonstration and to make a reporter
testify against Kieran.

At press time, the courts ruled that the
newspaper has to turn over the photos and
that the reporter has to testify. If the rul-

Fed Forms

general, proposing that we be thorough in
outreach and follow-through to people who
show interest in ABC, and proposing a
regional speaking tour. The other proposal,
from NJ ABC and Ojore Lutalo (a New
Afrikan Anarchist Prisoner of War), was a
detailed structure proposal for a new federa¬
tion. This is the proposal that we ended up
mostly talking about, and it is what we
adopted, with a few minor changes.

The PAC / Lutalo proposal was contro¬
versial within all the other groups before
the conference. At least some members of
each group had strong reservations with it.
But after discussion all day Sunday around
the proposal, everyone there agreed to
adopt the proposal, with only a few minor
changes. The proposed structure reflected a
lot of thought about how to deal with
many of the problems facing ABC groups,
and it seemed that most of the concerns
people had with the proposal were more
about how things were said or about poten¬
tial dangers, not concerns about what the
actual proposal said.

The proposal seems clearly designed to
“draw a line” of demarcation between ABC
groups who are able to make a long- term
commitment to revolutionary politics and
action, versus groups that don’t last very
long or are inconsistent. It also caters to a
very specific definition of what constitutes
“revolutionary politics,” which put off some
people. The way the proposal was presented
in the discussion bulletin included vague
attacks on some other ABC groups, which

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ings are upheld, this is a serious blow to
any notion of an independent press: a
precedent would be established whereby
the media would have to turn over whatev¬
er materials prosecutors want. Basically, the
press would be forced to collect evidence
for the state.

Fortunately, the student paper is fighting
the state every step of the way. However,
after each court ruling (six so far) there has
been an appeal, and after each appeal we
went to court to support Kieran, only to
find the trial had been delayed yet again.
Because of the appeals over evidence,
Kieran’s trial has been delayed eight times
so far. A bit ridiculous, isn’t it?

WE HATE COURTROOMS

But why should an innocent person have to
go to trial at all? The charges are complete¬
ly bogus: Kieran hit the nazi, but he clearly
acted in self-defense. Because of the injus¬
tice of this prosecution, because the state is
pursuing the case to infringe on whatever
is left of a “free press,” and because this
kind of injustice happens every day, anti¬
racists all over have been fighting back.

The prosecutor’s office has been swamped
with letters and phone calls from all over the
world demanding that the charges against
Kieran be dropped. Locally, we have held
several successful demonstrations in support
of Kieran. At our last demo, we occupied
County Attorney Mike Freeman’s office for
over an hour until he agreed to meet with us.

Of course, the state has invested so much
time and money prosecuting Kieran (plus we
have embarrassed them so much!) that they
probably won’t drop the charges at this
point, but we can sure make them soriy they

also probably caused some of the initial
skepticism toward the proposal. But once
we all got to talk through it face-to-face, it
became clear that we had the unity needed
to start the new ABC Federation.

The new federation is organized like this:
ABC groups will be organized in a two-tier
system. Branch Groups will be those groups
who have been together consistently for a
year, who file regular reports to the ABC
Bulletin, who contribute money monthly to
the War Chest (a fund to provide financial
assistance for political prisoners and
POWs), and who agree to function accord¬
ing to Lorenzo Komboa Ervin’s 15- point
and Lutalo’s 4-point programs regarding
prisoner support work. Support Groups
consist of new groups or those groups who,
for whatever reason, cannot meet the crite¬
ria to become a Branch Group.

Prisoners are also structured into the new
federation. A five-member Committee of
Prisoners, consisting of political prisoners or
POWs, will offer guidance and direction for
the ABC Federation. Members of this
Committee will have one-year terms. As of
the conference the membership of the
Committee had not been finalized, although
Ojore Lutalo and Sundiata Acoli have vol¬
unteered to be on it. Prisoners who are not
POWs or political prisoners who want to be

didn’t! The closer each new trial date gets,
the more pressure we need to put on them.

HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT KIERAN

Kieran’s next trial date is August 14. Here
are some things you can do:

Write or call the prosecutor and demand
that all charges against Kieran Frazier
Knutson be dropped immediately! Send one
copy of your letter to the AFDC and one to:

Mike Freeman

C2000 Hennepin Cty Gov't Ctr
300 S. 6th St.

Minneapolis, MN 55415
612-348-5550
612-348-5505

Pack the courtroom on Aug. 14. We pack
the courtroom for every trial date. If you live
in Minneapolis or will be visiting here
around then, go to the Hennepin County
Government Center fountain (address above)
at 9:00 a.m. on the 14th. People will be
there to direct you to the proper courtroom.

Write to the AFDC for more information.
Kieran is a committed activist. Some day,
we may find ourselves in the same position
he is in. For the good of the anti-racist
movement, it is vital that we show our sup¬
port for him in whatever way we can.

FIGHTIN6 RACISM IS NOT A CRIME!

DROP THE CHARGES AGAINST
KIERAN FRAZIER KNUTSON!

Anti-Fascist Defense Committee
PO Box 7075
Minneapolis, MN 55407
jolson@polisci.umn.edu

part of the ABC can form ‘‘Prisoner
Solidarity Committees” which support and
work with the activities of the federation,
but don’t necessarily have to be anarchist
We also left open the possibility that orga¬
nizations or collectives of prisoners can
become Branch Groups if they meet the
same requirements as groups on the outside.

Since the conference, Baltimore ABC and
Brew City Anti-Authoritarian Collective
have decided to become Support Groups in
the new federation. It still remains to be
seen how other ABC groups will decide to
relate to this new federation. Those of us
who have joined the federation believe it
will help to create consistency, reliability,
and increased effectiveness among ABCs,
qualities most ABC groups have been noto¬
riously lacking in the past.

To get a copy of the ABC Federation’s
Bimonthly Discussion Bulletin:

NJABC
PO Box 8532
Paterson, N) 07508-8532

For the notes from the ABC Conference:

Baltimore ABC
PO Box 22203
Baltimore, MD 21203-4203

Anarchist Bladk Cross and
Other Prison Mwlition Groups

WE WANT AU. PfUSONEW

aeleasep

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1995 • LOVE AND RAGE • PAGE 13

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20

EZLN: BREAKING NEW GROUND AGAIN

EZLN Calls for Unprecedented
International Consultation

(Continued from page J)

New forms of organization have devel¬
oped since then; Popular fronts, coordina¬
tors, civil associations, citizen’s committees,
organizational alliances.

Nevertheless, the different initiatives are
limited, and waste away in the horizon
which produces them. For each blow an
organized response develops, For each
organized response, the system prepares
another blow.

We think that an initiative with a
national character is lacking which UNITES
and MAKES COHESIVE all the organiza¬
tional forms which have been until now
diffuse. We believed, wc pointed out in our
“THIRD DECLARATION OF THE LACAN-
DON JUNGLE,, a NATIONAL LIBERATION
MOVEMENT was necessary which would
unite all the for<;:es, all the citizens and
organizations which struggle against the
State party system.

A movement which finds a unifying
point among all the democratic forces. A
movement which develops a common pro¬
gram of struggle.

A movement which proposes a national
plan of action, of struggle for democracy,
liberty and ju.sticc for all Mexicans and for
the defense of national sovereignty.

The discussion about the characteristics
of this great national opposition movement
postponed its creation. The National
Democratic Convention, called to head this
ample opposition front, gave in to discus¬
sion about whether the front should be
based on class or should be broad-based.
As though these concepts were mutually
exclusive, as though the formation of an
ample multi-class movement impeded the
generation.of a class movement, the
NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION
avoided making a decision in this regard.

The economic and repressive blows of
February, March, and April, the widespread
popular discontent, the lack of organizational
alternatives and the awakening of the work¬
ers in the republic, made it clear that it was
an error to have postponed the call which,
days later, the people of Mexico awaited.

Nevertheless, new actors and new orga¬
nizational forms began to point anew to
the urgency and necessity of an initiative
the nature of which could be a Movement
for National Liberation.

Today we think it continues to be neces¬
sary to form this ample opposition front to
the politics of the government.

Today we find ourselves at the begin¬
ning of a new effort at a dialogue with the
supreme government. Today we renew our
demands for democracy, liberty and justice
for all Mexicans.

Today we offer, as we did 18 months ago
our blood, our voice so that all may speak,
our cry so that all may cry, our demands so

[This article was originally a leaflet pro¬
duced by the NY Committee for Democracy
in Mexico. This leaflet gives an excellent,
concise explanation of the recent EZLN
request for feedback from the people of
Mexico and the international solidarity
community concerning the political future
of the Zapatistas. Please also see pages 14
and 15 of this issue for more information
and important recent EZLN communiques.]

BY The NY Committee
FOR Democracy in Mexico

T he Zapatista are calling for an impartial
consultation with the international
community and have proposed five
questions to guide the discussion. They state,

. . (W)e do not want people to respond
with what we want them to respond .. . We
want the people to respond with what they
think and we want to know the real results .
. .” Emphasizing that “all social classes” be
represented, the EZLN specifically invites
unions, students, squatters, workers, Journal¬
ists, Indigenous people, housewives, intellec¬
tuals, artists, clergy, elderly, men, women,
and children. However, they stress, “We do
not want a survey. Not because we do not

that all may demand.

Today we demand Everything for
Everyone!

Today we demand a national dialogue
between those who are opposed to the
democratic change and those who struggle
to make it a reality. Between the govern¬
ment, on one side, and all the democratic
forces on the other.

National dialogue in order to dialogue
with the government.

We Zapatistas see this as necessary. We do
not want to make decisions without listening
to all those who have helped us so much in
the search for a peace with justice and digni¬
ty. We cannot do what the bad government
does, that is, make decisions without asking
those who, supposedly, support them.

Brothers [and Sisters];

We have demonstrated before, every time
that war seemed to engulf our lands, that
we know how to listen. Today we want to
demonstrate anew and re-orient our path.

That is why we are directing ourselves to
the people of Mexico, to the Democratic
National Convention, to the different inde¬
pendent social organizations, to the politi¬
cal parties of opposition, to the citizens’
organizations, to the non- governmental
organizations, to the unions, to the stu¬
dents, to the squatters, to the workers of
the fields and the cities, to the indigenous
Mexicans, to the housewives, to the intel¬
lectuals and artists, to the religious com¬
munity, to the elderly, to the women, to the
men and the children. And we are also call¬
ing upon those solidarity committees in the
international community, to our brothers
and sisters of North America, of Europe, of
Asia of South America.

We call upon everyone, legal and clan¬
destine, armed and peaceful, civil and mili¬
tary, to all those who struggle, in all forms,
on all levels and in all parts for democracy,
liberty and justice in the world.

For us, for the Zapatistas, the voice of
civil society is important. The voice of all
of you has value and power for the
Zapatistas. We want to hear your word
and know your thoughts in order to con¬
tinue ahead.

We are directing ourselves to all our
brothers in order to propose a national and
international consultation [plebiscite]
which will give direction to all of us in
order to find the steps we should take and
the direction we should follow in this his¬
toric moment. We therefore propose the
organization of a GREAT NATIONAL CON¬
SULTATION [plebiscite] to address the fol¬
lowing questions:

1. Do you agree that the principal
demands of the Mexican people are :
land, housing, jobs, food, health, educa-

think it would have value, but because (this)
is not about a market study to ‘offer’ a new
political ‘product,’ but rather (this) is about a
dialogue.”

ABOUT THE FIVE QUESTIONS

These five questions are not specific to the
crisis in Mexico. According to the EZLN, “it
would be good for all democratic forces ...
to know the answers to these questions.” It
is important to keep this international con¬
text in mind.

(1) “Do you agree with the principal
demands for: land, housing, jobs,
health, education, culture, informa-
‘ tion, independence, democracy, liber¬
ty, justice and peace?”

The Zapatistas consider these demands
basic human needs and the question “refers
to the need for a new social pact.” Further,
the EZLN argues that if these demands
reflect the will of the majority of the
Mexican people, “then the economic direc¬
tion of the country should be redefined”
such that a “fundamental objective (is) the

tion, culture, information, independence,
democracy, liberty, justice and peace?

2. Should the different democratizing
forces unite in a broad- based opposi¬
tion front to struggle for the 13 prin¬
cipal demands?

3. Should a profound political reform
be made in terms which guarantee:
equity, citizen participation, including
the non-partisan and non-govern¬
mental, respect for the vote, reliable
voter registration of all the national
political, regional, and local forces?

4. Should the EZLN be converted to a
new and independent political force?

5. Should the EZLN unite with other
forces and organizations and form a
new political organization?

There are five questions to be answered
“YES”, “NO, or “I DONT KNOW”. These are
five questions which we need answered in
order to continue ahead.

Brothers [and Sisters]:

We make a respectful request to the broth¬
ers of the NATIONAL CIVIC ALLIANCE to
contribute to this peaceful and civic effort
in the struggle for democracy, providing
their experience in the organization of such
citizen consultations.

satisfaction of these needs.” Do you agree?
Why or why not? What would such a
change in Mexico imply for the US and the
rest of the world? Are these demands uni¬
versal? Are they comprehensive? What
should be added/deleted?

(2) “Should the different democratiz¬
ing forces unite in a broad-based
opposition front to struggle for the 13
principal demands?”

The Zapatistas have repeatedly men¬
tioned the need for a collaboration, stating
“We are nothing if we go alone, we are
everything if we walk together with others
who are dignified.” Yet they have also
asserted that this type of collaborative
effort might occur in “a more open space,
under a much larger flag ... If someone
raises that flag, we would go there . . . “
Do you agree with the need to form a
broad-based movement? Why or why not?
If you agree, how could it be formed? Does
agreement on the 13 points provide a suffi¬
cient basis? If not, what would? Do you see

(Continued to page 21)

We make an urgent call to those differ¬
ent groups who make up the Democratic
National Convention to suspend their inter¬
nal purges and take into their hands the
organization and realization of this large
national consultation.

We call upon the National Convention
of Workers to organize the consultation
in unions, labor centers and workers’
organizations.

We call upon the National Convention of
Indigenous Peoples to organize the consul¬
tation in the indigenous and peasant com¬
munities of the nation, and in the indepen¬
dent organizations of indigenous people
and peasants.

We call upon the National Student
Convention to organize the consultation in
the middle and upper educational centers
of the country.

We call upon the National Women’s
Convention to organize a consultation in the

independent organizations of women, in the
neighborhoods and with the housewives.

We call upon the National convention of
Artists to organize a consultation among
cultural workers and to collaborate, with
their labor and production, with the realiza¬
tion of this consultation in all the country.

We call upon the solidarity organizations
which sympathize with the just cause of the
EZLN in the United States, Spain, Italy,
France, Germany, Greece, Japan, Chile,
Holland, Sweden, Norway, England,
Argentina, Venezuela, Switzerland,
Belgium, Austria and Russia, and in all the
world to organize this consultation in their
respective countries.

Brothers [and Sisters];

This is our word. We ask that we organize
ourselves in order to ask, that we organize
ourselves in order to respond, that we orga¬
nize ourselves in order to act. We propose
that the consultation announce its results
by August 8th of 1995 at the latest, first
anniversary of the beginning of the nation¬
al dialogue for a transition to democracy.

The EZLN confirms, with this proposal
for a great citizen consultation, its commit¬
ment to “command by obeying”. It gives a
demonstration of its seriousness and its
true commitment in the search for a politi¬
cal solution to the war, and calls to a new
national dialogue among the democratic
forces of the country.

Democracy!

Liberty!

Justice!

From the mountains of the Mexican
Southeast, [signatures] Comandante Tacho,
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos,
Comandante David

Clandestine Indigenous Revolutionary
Committee- General Command of the
Zapatista Army of National Liberation-
Mexico

NY Committee for Democracy in Mexico
Explanation of the EZLN's Five Questions

PAGE 14 • LOVE AND RAGE • AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1995

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20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28

EZLN; BREAKING NEW GROUND AGAIN

EZLN Clarifies Consultation

Zapatista Army for National Liberation

Mexico

June 20, 1995

To: National Democratic Convention

National Council of Representatives From:

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos

CCRI-CGoftheEZLN

Mountains of Southeastern Mexico

Mexico

Brothers (and Sisters):

By this means I am writing to inform you
of our proposal for organizing and promot¬
ing the National Plebiscite. Attached to this
is the letter we sent to the National Civic
Alliance, explaining to them our idea about
the consultation. We are waiting for their
response. I will not repeat the arguments
and explanation of the “organizational
chart” for this part of the national dialogue.

I ask you to review them and send us your
response with regard to whether or not you
accept this form of participation for the
National Democratic Convention.

According to our proposal, the CND
would be responsible for the organization of
the International Consultation and the pro¬
motion and dissemination of the National
Consultation. The organization of the
National Consultation would be the respon¬
sibility of the National Civic Alliance.

As you will see when you read the
attached letter, in the organization of the
International Consultation, 10 members of
the CND proposed by the EZLN would par¬
ticipate. These are the names of the people
we propose for organizing the International
Consultation:

Amado Avendano Figueroa
Rosario Ibarra de Piedra
Jose Alvarez Icaza
Ofelia Medina
Flora Guerrero
David Villarreal
Guillermo Briseno
Carlota Botey
Patria Jimenez
Paulina Fernandez C.

To respond to this and to what you stat¬
ed justifiably in your letter dated June 9,
1995, I am going to try to explain what we
are thinking of, and what we hope for with
this consultation.

First and foremost, it is an effort to be
true to the words.

Zapatismo has insisted in the concept of
“leading by obeying” as one of the points
of a new democratic culture. We are an
armed and clandestine organization, that is
true. That we are an organization that has
declared war on the federal government, is
also true. But we are an organization that is
in dialogue with the government, which is
to say, that we are seeking that words, not
arms, resolve our just demands. We are an
organization protected by the decree of law
on March 6, 1995, and because of that, and
while the process of dialogue and negotia¬
tion lasts and new conditions are agreed
upon, we are a legal organization recog¬
nized by the government’s authorities. We
are, then, an organization that is willing to
seek and follow roads, other than war, to
democratic change.

As you know, since January 12, 1994,
we have not carried out any violent action
against the government. The delegates of

the federal government to the dialogue in
San Andres Sacamch’en de los Pobres
accuse us of trying to buy time, that we do
not have a “will to dialogue”. But buying
time for what? Since January 1, 1994 the
country has suffered not just a few crises
(for example those of the assassinations of
public figures, and the economy) and
many moments ripe for “destabilization”
have been created.

However, our EZLN has not carried out
even one action in these times to take
advantage of them. We have not lacked for
opportunities or “times” to take advantage
of. What we have been missing are the seri¬
ous proposals for solving the fundamental
causes of our uprising. And what we are
looking for is a just and dignified solution,
not a check or a paved road.

Our struggle is political. This we have been
teaching everyone, including ourselves. For
this reason we do not seek with this consulta¬
tion an endorsement of war, just as we did
not seek it in August 1994 when the National
Democratic Convention was formed.

I believe that our brief and intense public
life, since January 1994, has demonstrated
that we are willing to seek, even at the risk
of our own lives, the political rather than the
military solution. For us the “political solu¬
tion” is synonymous with “peace with justice
and dignity”. We do not expect a political
solution from the government. For them, the
“political solution” is equal to surrender, to
defeat, to humiliation; this is the reason for
the overbearing and arrogant attitude of the
government’s delegates. They are not inter¬
ested in resolving the conflict, but instead in
winning it. We are interested in resolving it,
and we know that the solutions will not
come from the government or from our
ranks. They will come, we think, from the
same place that have come: the cease fire in
January 1994, the dialogue in San Cristobal,
the National Democratic Convention, the
humanitarian aid, the support in search of a
dignified peace, the clamor to detain the
treason of February 1995, the peace camps,
the national and international observers, the
dialogue in San Andres. The origin of all of
these happenings, so large and so quickly
done, is what many are disdaining, looking
at with skepticism or disillusion: the civil
society that struggles for democracy.

In disagreement with not just a few
political analysts and politicians, as well as
some intellectuals and artists, we continue
watching with hope and interest this civil
movement, that has no defined face or
clear political project yet has a capacity for
indignation and imaginative responses that
surpass the great personages of politics.

We have not received, from this civil
movement, applause or help for continuing
the war. We have received, from them and
no one else, an opportunity. An opportunity
that has always been denied to thousands of
men and women because they are indige¬
nous and don’t speak the same way, and
have a different culture, and are not “pro¬
ductive”, and are at the bottom of the statis¬
tics of death and misery. Life is worth so lit¬
tle in these lands, that death is valued even
less, and it was cheaper to die...than to live.

We have received an opportunity, the
opportunity to speak and be heard. Now we
learn that this opportunity is real, and we
are willing to use it, and use it always so
that we don’t lose it again. We learned to
speak and this is what we have come to say:

We are Mexicans and we have a national
proposal. We propose to struggle for, and
achieve, democracy, liberty and justice for
all the men and women of this country.

We came to say, also, that we are human
beings and we have a global proposal. We
propose a new international order based
and ruled by democracy, liberty and justice.

But the surprise is not that a moverrlent
that is mostly indigenous recover its
national and international nature. In addi¬
tion to being indigenous, the EZLN is prin¬
cipally illiterate and poor.

But this does not invalidate our national
and international proposal. It is already
known by everyone what the technocratic
culture has done, as a post-doctorate from
a foreign country, with this country: it has

brought misery, crimes, inability to govern,
uncertainty, and some immense desires, in
the gut and the heart, for everything to
change. What is surprising is that our voice
has found other ears, different from ours,
and who do not try to make our words go
away or adulterate them. We have found
ears that listen to us and make our words
their own. This is the surprise for everyone,
including us.

We learned, with this war, to speak and
be listened to. But we did not learn to lis¬
ten. This we already knew. To learn to lis¬
ten is, at least for the indigenous of south¬
ern Mexico, to learn to live. Now we want
to use these rights and responsibilities, the
rights to speak and be heard, and the
responsibility to listen to what others are
saying. They say that this is a “dialogue”:
to speak and listen...to find our differences,
but also, and this is the most difficult, what
makes us the same.

Old Man Antonio taught that questions
serve for walking, for moving forward.
With the example of Ik’al and Votan, Old
Man Antonio demonstrated that asking and
responding is walking and arriving...at
another question and another response.
Now we are following this road, we are
asking..and we are awaiting responses.

For this reason we say that the best
demonstration of our will to achieve a
political solution, which is to say a peace
with dignity, is our calling for this National
Consultation. We are not making a call for
war. We are asking...to walk. To participate
in this consultation is to collaborate in the
political solution to the war, it is to partici¬
pate in a just and dignified peace, that I
believe, we deserve.

I understand that you have asked why an
invitation was made to the National Civic
Alliance, and in what way we are asking for
them to participate in the consultation.

True, you have the technical means, the
knowledge and the methods (which you
have already proved) so that our questions
get out to all of the country and so that
they will be responded to by many, thou¬
sands, for dozens of thousands, for hun¬
dreds of thousands, for millions if there is a
favorable wind. But it is not because of the
technical means, the knowledge, and the
methods that we are encouraged to direct

ourselves to you so that you can help us
ask the people of Mexico and have them
respond. These means are also in others’
hands who use them in other ways..What
has caused us to come to you is... your his¬
tory. We have “read” in it your ethics. Now
I know that “ethics” has many meanings,
and that it is, most of the times, something
not used in “the new world” that is
imposed on us. But for us it signifies “hon¬
esty", something not very common in these
days and in these lands. There is, in addi¬
tion, other elements that are more impor¬
tant to this work than the computers:
impartiality and credibility. “Legitimacy” I
would normally say, but it is a word that
the Mexican political system has turned
into illegitimacy. With these questions we
want to learn what is real. We do not want
a reality for our liking and convenience.
We know that from you will come real
results, even if they do not make us happy.

And now that we are talking about the
questions, what consultation do we want?

Or even broader, what do we hope for with
this consultation? The answers will not be
as easy as “yes” or “no”, but I will try to
make them concrete.

FIRST. The consultation that we want
should be impartial, which is to say, we do
not want people to respond with what we
want them to respond, we do not want the
results to be what is most convenient for
us. We want the people to respond with
what they think and we want to know the
real results of this consultation.

We want a national consultation, one that
includes all social classes and is done
throughout the national territory. We want to
ask, the greatest number of people possible,
and to know what they think and hope for.

SECOND. We want it to have credibility.
This does not come from the result or from
the quantity consulted. It comes from the
seriousness and professionalism of its orga¬
nization, direction, methods and impartiality.

THIRD. We do not want a survey. Not
because we do not think it would have
value, but because it is not about a market
study to “offer” a new political “product”,
but rather, is about a dialogue.

FOURTH. The questions are definitive in
what they want to find out, but not in their
formation. They can be amplified, reduced,

(Continued to page 23)

Don't Miss the i
Late-Breaking
News about the
EZLN's

Consultation Being
Extended (page 25)

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1995 • LOVE AND RAGE • PAGE 15

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cm 1

Faculdade de Clenclas e Letras de Assis

First World—Ha, Ha, Ha

BY Harry Cleaver

A s the crises of Mexican society deep¬
en, and reverberate throughout the
world, the importance of under¬
standing their nature grows, Mexico is not
just Mexico. The political struggles that
have undermined its authoritarian political
structure and contributed to the collapse of
its speculative economy must be recognized
as explosions that are cracking the New
World Order as a whole. The recent deci¬
sion by the leadership of the Group of
Seven industrial countries to find ways of
containing such crises and preventing their
circulation throughout the world capitalist
system demonstrates how clearly the man¬
agers of the global work machine grasp this
about the centrality of social struggles in
Mexico. For those of us interested in
wrecking that machine, understanding
those struggles and why and how their
power is being felt so widely has become
an urgent necessity. To reach such under¬
standing we must listen to the voices of
those in rebellion and to those who are
responding to them.

The Zapatista uprising in the southern
Mexican state of Chiapas-which has
restored hope to many and Revolution to
political discourse-has been both the result
and a producer of a multiplicity of voices
joined in a complex conversation. As the
best known Zapatista spokesman.
Subcommander Marcos, has insisted, his
voice gives Spanish shape to a conversa¬
tion among campesinos that has been car¬
ried on in many indigenous tongues for
over 10 years, in some ways for over 500
years. At the same time, the words of the
Zapatistas have provoked a great many
others to begin new conversations about
many issues, both old and new. The procla¬
mations, communiques and letters from the
mountains of southeastern Mexico have
generated a whole new world of impas¬
sioned conversation, throughout not only
Mexico but in much of the rest of the
world. Speeches, collective discussions,
articles, reports and books have been, and
continue to be, produced in reaction to
Zapatista ideas and actions. It is fitting,
therefore, for at least one of those books-
FIRST WORLD, HA HA HA!—to present a
cross-section of the voices now joined in
this complex encounter.

Elaine Katzenberger has assembled an
interesting and stimulating collection of
voices from Mexico and the United States,
of those in revolt and those reacting to the
revolt. The book was conceived, she writes
in her introduction, “as a way to translate,
broadcast, and amplify the sense of possi¬
bility that was created by the uprising.”
Listened to as moments of an ever wider
and ever more multi-sided conversation,
the voices in the book should contribute to
that amplification by giving their listeners
a sense of the complexity and breadth of
the discussion. There are a LOT of people
involved in this discussion.

While the book is by no means compre¬
hensive, it does allow us to hear many of
the passions engaged and issues at stake.
For those who have not yet listened in, the
book will provide a sense of what is being
said. For those who have already joined in
the dialogue, they are likely to hear some
new voices-especially those from Mexican

writers and poets-that will complement the
Zapatista materials already available in
translation (Voices Of Fire; Zapatistas!
Documents Of The New Mexican
Revolution; and Shadows Of Tender Fury)
and the only book-length analytical
response produced so far (BASTA!).

The most familiar of the material in the
book is that from the Zapatistas them-
selves-precisely because at least three col¬
lections have been published in English.
After a brief introduction and three brief
descriptions of the revolt itself, recounted
by those who were there at the time,
Katzenberger offers the reader a series of
interviews that reproduce the voices of over
a dozen Zapatistas. Some of these are well-
known figures, such as Subcommander
Marcos and Commander Ramona. Others
are much less well known but often no less
interesting in their stories and personalities.

Medea Benjamin’s interview with Marcos
is a useful addition to previously translated
interviews. One of the co-founders of
Global Exchange, an NGO dedicated to
grass-roots development, that has spon¬
sored several trips by international
observers to Chiapas, Benjamin probes
Marcos on both the nature of the Zapatista
struggle and on his ideas of how those in
the US can suppoit the EZLN’s efforts in
Mexico. Marcos’s account of the struggle
speaks to a number of familiar issues, such
as the aim of opening space for democracy
rather than seizing power, the importance
of women in the Zapatista National
Liberation Army'(EZLN) and the organiza¬
tion’s support for women’s struggles for
political participation and control over
their own lives and bodies. Asked about the
best thing that activists in the United States
could do in supporting the Zapatistas,
Marcos answered “it is so important for the
Am*erican people to be aware of what’s
going on, and to pressure their government
to stop supporting the corrupt Mexican
government. It’s important for the
American people to make sure that if
another round of violence breaks out, their
government will not intervene.”

With respect to the very central issue of
land reform and the reconquest of stolen
territory by the indigenous (and
campesinos more generally), Marcos makes
clear that EZLN demands go beyond “land
to the tiller” or a return to traditional meth¬
ods (slash and burn) to the modernization
of agriculture. As a later essay in the book,
by Peter Rosset, who draws on George
Collier’s field research, suggests, this atten¬
tion to modernization reflects the changes
that have taken place in Chiapas over the
last decades as wealthier peasants and
landowners have begun to use a variety of
new techniques to raise the productivity of
the land. “If we had tractors, fertilizers,
good seeds, technical assistance,” Marcos
says, “this land would produce eight to six¬
teen times what it produces now.” The
reappropriation of land, in other words,
must be accompanied by access to what is
necessary to make it more productive.

Unfortunately, neither Benjamin nor
Marcos broach the controversial issues sur¬
rounding the use of “modern” technologies,
not least of which are environmental ones.
We know from other statements that the
Zapatistas ARE concerned with such issues,

but no such discussion appears in this
interview.

Another issue concerning land reform
that Marcos does mention, but which is not
developed as much as one might like, is
that of how reappropriated land might be
allocated and managed. When Marcos says
“we need to have collective farms” alarm
bells may go off in the minds of many
readers who will associate such a term with
the horrors of Soviet-style, state-capitalist
agrarian policies. Few today can associate
the term “collective farms” with anything
other than exploitation and the “collecting”
of a surplus. Yet Marcos’ comments do NOT
spell out any such vision. His comments
appear in response to a question about the
landless—thus collective farms as an alter¬
native to handing out too little arable land
to too many landless-and there is no role
for the state in his “collective farms.” “We
think the big farms should be given over to
production collectives that would use some
of their produce for their own subsistence
and sell the rest.” Thus, the vision would
seem to be more akin to traditional
arrangements where the land is held and
worked in common than to any kind of
state imposed “collectivist” regime.

However, the comment about “selling
the rest” suggests that the Zapatista discus¬
sions have not yet invented alternatives to

the market as a means of wider distribution
and sharing.

Marcos’ comments are complemented in
the book by those of Antonio Hernandez
Cruz, a Tojolabal Indian and leader of the
State Indigenous and Campesino Council of
Chiapas (CIOAC). Besides speaking about
his arrest and torture by the military, he
also speaks about the need to redistribute
land, especially the good, productive lands
stolen from the Indians by the landlords.

He discusses the need to reverse the
reform of Article 27 of the Constitution,
which legally abolished communal land
ownership. But at the same time, he dis¬
cusses these things in terms of indigenous
rights: the need for land is the need for the
basis of indigenous community and its cul¬
tures. “We have been advancing in the
attempt to establish a comprehensive plan
for indigenous people’s rights. We need
constitutional reform where a whole new
chapter establishes various articles that
speak of Indian people’s concrete rights.”
Such efforts, supported by the Zapatistas,
who are overwhelmingly indigenous, have
provoked a new self-consciousness and
pride among many indigenous communi¬
ties, of themselves and their traditions.

The voices in the book that speak of the
key role of women’s struggles in Chiapas
and within the EZLN are varied. There is
Marcos’, of course, and the “Revolutionary
Women’s Law”-drafted by women in the
EZLN and accepted by its leadership. There
is also a brief overview by the well known
Mexican woman writer Elena Poniatowska.
These voices emphasize both the heavy
burden of toil imposed on women by a
capitalist exploitation that includes family
patriarchy and the new struggles of women
against that burden.

Fresher, however, are the lesser known
voices of several Chiapaneca women—both
within and without the EZLN.

There is the Tzeltal Indian Isidora, for
instance, who recounts her struggle to join
the Zapatistas at the age of 13—which
sounds very young but is often the age of
marriage and childbearing for indigenous
girls in Chiapas. Twice she ran away from
home and sought out the EZLN, only to be
returned home by them, and was beaten by
her family. Finally, respecting her tenacity
and courage, the Zapatistas called a village
meeting to discuss the situation and to ask
for the community’s authorization for her
to join them. In view of her determination,
the community agreed.

Then there is Maria, 22 years old and
another Tzeltal Indian, who joined the
EZLN, learned Spanish and other skills, met

GOVERNMENT^ DON'T FALL
THEY NEED YOUR HELP. JOIN

BY THEMSELVES.
THE FEDERATION

Amor y Rabia
Apdo. 11-351/CP 06101
Mexico, DF

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20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

her husband-to-be in the Zapatista Army,
and then left it when they were married
and decided to have a baby (which is not
permitted within the army proper).

There are also Natalia and Soledad who
live in San Cristobal and who are members
of JTAS JOLOVILETIK the largest women’s
artisanal cooperative in Chiapas. These
women, who are interviewed by Yolanda
Castro, are not members of the EZLN but
have clearly been influenced by it and are
veiy much involved in the discussions it
has provoked, especially about women’s
rights. Their comments display not only an
acute consciousness of the injustices of tra¬
ditional racial discrimination and patri¬
archy, but also firm agreement with the 10
points of the Revolutionary Women’s Law
adopted by the Zapatistas,

When Yolanda Castro came to Austin a
few months back, to talk about the cooper¬
ative and the struggles of its women, she
showed a film in which the women in the
organization were involved in extensive
and detailed discussions, not only about
the Revolutionary Law but also about the
reform of the Mexican constitution. The
law has triggered a new critical feminist
awareness of the two-sided character of
those “traditions” supposedly protected by
the Constitution, While indigenous leaders
like Antonio Hernandez Cruz tend to speak
in gender-neutral terms about “indigenous
rights” the women in J’PAS JOLOVILETIK,
Castro related, took a large piece of paper,
drew a line down the middle and proceeded
to discuss and sort out “traditions” into two
categories: those worthy of being preserved
and those which needed to be discarded or
changed. One tradition in Chiapas which is
under attack by women is the one whereby
only men have the right to own land. Just
as the indigenous community needs land to
found its autonomy, so too are women
demanding the material basis of their own.
Such are.the kinds of discussions among
women that have been provoked by the
Zapatista uprising and are forcing the revo¬
lutionary process beyond such traditional
issues as land tenure and native rights.

Interspersed among such native voices
are those of several commentators who
attempt to interpret and situate the strug¬
gles in Chiapas within a wider context.

Noam Chomsky, for example, sees the
Zapatista rebellion and the other struggles
it has set in motion as revolts against the
“free-trade,” neo-liberal strategies of global
capitalism, against NAFTA, against GATT
and against the efforts of multinational
corporations to pit workers of one area
against those of another.

Native American intellectual Ward
Churchill, for his part, after discussing the
long history of Mayan rebellion, locates the
Zapatista revolt as an integral part of a
much wider (hemispheric and global) upris¬
ing of indigenous people. “The EZLN should
be viewed”, he writes, “through its deliber¬

ate internal alignment with the spirit of the
1630 Mayan revolt, as joining-conceptual-
ly and emotionally-the much broader his¬
torical stream of indigenous resistance in
the Americas ... the Zapatista phenomenon
is as much an extension of the resistance of
Powhatan or Pontiac to British imperialism
as it is of the example of Tupac Amaru or
Ajuricaba . . . the list goes on and on.”
Churchill cites an article by Bernard
Neitschmann in CULTURAL SURVIVAL
QUARTERLY (1988) that cataloged some
125 of the world’s “hot wars” and found
that “fully 85 percent were being waged by
specific indigenous peoples, or amalgama¬
tions of indigenous peoples.” “In other
words,” Churchill concludes, “the Zapatistas
—and the INDIGENISMO they incarnate-
represent the revitalization of revolutionaiy
potential in America.”

The Mexican intellectual, Antonio Garcia
de Leon, who has written extensively on
Chiapas and the history of social struggles
in Mexico, takes the EZLN’s “zapatismo” as
a point of departure to discuss its relation¬
ship to their forerunner Emiliano Zapata,
and more profoundly to the recurrent
rebirth of hope and struggle after periods
of repression and exploitation. His evoca¬
tion of this eternal return of new energy
for both negation (of oppression) and affir¬
mation (of new ways of being) is a celebra¬
tion of “the collective dream, the most
powerful imagining of MEXICO PROFUN-
DO [deep Mexico].” His voice resonates
with some of the most important feelings
liberated in the world by the Zapatista
uprising: those of renewed hope and
renewed imagination for breaking free of
the generalized capitalist assault on the
workers and peasants of the entire world
that has wrecked so much havoc over the
last two decades. It doesn’t remind us how
that assault came as a response to a previ¬
ous cycle of struggle, but it does give a
sense of the new energy that has been
loosed across the face of the globe.

Despite the general focus of such com¬
mentators on what is new and interesting
about the Zapatistas and the bottom-up
struggles in Mexico, there are a few voices
still engaged in old debates. Ronnie Burke,
while tracing the history of Mexico’s influ¬
ence on revolutionaries, would have us
believe that “recent events confirm that
Mexico’s revolutionary character is very
much in keeping with Trotsky’s formula¬
tions” and proceeds to quote Trotsky that
“the complete and genuine solution of their
[the colonial and semi-colonial countries]
tasks, democratic and national emancipa¬
tion, is conceivable only through the dicta¬
torship of the proletariat . . .” Perhaps the
persistence of such thinking explains why
Ward Churchill takes time to renew his
attacks on orthodox Marxism (which
includes Trotskyism) and why Mongo
Sanchez Lira and Rogelio Villareal bother
to berate Leftists North and South (includ-

Direct Action to Save Mumia

BY BrONWYN

T he Love and Rage Federation has been
present for some time in the struggle
to save and free Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Love and Rage local collectives and indi¬
vidual members are presently working in
coalitions in cities across the country in the
midst of this crisis to save Mumias life. It is
crucial to come together to stop his execu¬
tion set for August 17, 1995. This also
comes at a time when the US government
has intensified the war upon its people.

Mumia was targeted by the US govern¬
ment’s counterinsurgency (COINTELPRO)
war on Liberation Movements such as the
Black Panther Party and FMLN. These were
genuine liberation movements fighting
against an imperialist government. Mumia
was targeted by the government, as well, for
aligning himself with and speaking out on
behalf of the MOVE organization. MOVE is
a grassroots activist group in Philadelphia
that fights state oppression, racism, police
brutality and capitalist imperialism. MOVE
was also attacked COINTELPRO style with
members including children being bombed
and burnt to death in what as known as the
Mother’s Day Massacre, May 13, 1985.

The Love and Rage Federation struggles to
abolish the state and therefore opposes and
fights any form of state murder by any facet
of this government. The death penalty is a
weapon that this government is using in its
systematic genocide of Black, poor white,
Latino, and Native American peoples. This is
their most overt form of state murder. It is
being used hand-in-hand with the a covert
Drug war that pumps poison into poor com¬
munities and then allows the state to murder

or incarcerate the people for possessing them.
This government’s new crimes legislation
gives the state 52 new ways in which it can
apply an overt death sentence. This capitalist-
imperialist government has also built a boom¬
ing prison economy in which the ruling class
beneficiaries of the government profit from
the mass incarceration of the people. Prisons
are another weapon in the government’s
genocidal plan. The Love and Rage Federation
struggles toward prison abolition and creating
a society free of prisons with socio-communal
forms of handling social dysfunction.

Mumia Abu-Jamal has become, over his
13 years on death row, a symbol for this
genocidal war on the people by the racist,
terrroristic imperialist US government.

We say along with the Zapatistas,
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! We will have no
more of this government’s war at home. We
support direct action as a means to saving
the life of Mumia Abu-Jamal. This means
any type of direct action that will send a
message to this government about what
political price it will have to pay for taking
Mumias life. We encourage non-sectarian,
anti-authoritarian, non-hierarchical and
democratic processes in organizing to save
him. We also support any type of
autonomous organizing directed at saving
Mumias life as long as it does not discredit
the larger movement.

JOIN US IN THE STREETS FOR MUMIA!

SAY ENOUGH IS ENOUGH TO GENOCIDE!

MUMIA MUST LIVE! MUMIA MUST BE FREE!

[This article is one of two draft statements by
the Love and Rage Prison Abolition Working
Group. See the group's other draft statement
starting on page L]

ing the PRD, those who support it and even
the National Autonomous University
Student Council).

More interesting is Iain Boal’s discussion
of the similarities and differences between
the Zapatistas and the Luddites within the
context of a celebration of the work of
Marxist historian Edward Thompson, one
of the founders of contemporary bottom-up
history. The parallels between the Luddites
and the Zapatistas are in the similarities
between the resistance in Chiapas (and
Mexico more generally) and that of the
British people to the onslaught of industri¬
alization. In both cases peasants have
fought against the enclosure of their lands
and their forced induction into the indus¬
trial labor army.

FIRST WORLD, HA HA HA! is illuminated
with the work of American and Mexican pho¬
tographers and poets. The photographs made
in Chiapas allow us to SEE the kind of people
to whose voices we are listening, and a little
bit of their world. Some are wearing ski
masks, which draw our attention to their eyes
and to what they are doing. Others are not:
children and adults, in contemplation and at
work. Some add depth to the voices—like
David Muang’s striking photograph of four
women bent almost double, carrying heavy
loads across a vast open landscape, an image
that dramatizes the arduous toil against which
the women of Chiapas are now speaking out.
Or the cover photograph of the book itself, a
photograph by Nunez Pliego of a woman
holding an AK- 47. In the photograph there is
only her colorful indigenous dress, her brown
arms and the central presence of the gun
which, like the woman herself, is too big to fit
on the cover and disappears off of it in both

directions. Some photos evoke the cosmology
of the indigenous, fheir sense of place within
the whole of nature. Others are self-reflective,
like the photographs of political murals and of
other photographs-such as that of Emiliano
Zapata in the hands of a contemporary
demonstrator-both of which remind us that
the power of images has developed alongside
the power of words in this revolutionary
struggle for a new worl !.

The poems chosen for this collection
express many of the same feelings and
yearnings as the other voices, only in dif¬
ferent ways. For those whose eyelids grow
heavy when faced with long paragraphs of
dense prose, they offer other, more aes¬
thetically appealing, access points for
coming to grips with the realities of the
struggle in Chiapas. While Chiapaneco
poets Juan Banuelos and Elva Macias
respectively grieve for the tortured and
assassinated and celebrate the warriors
birthed by the jungle, Mexican City poet
Alberto Blanco stretches the newly redis¬
covered concept of tribe forward and out¬
ward, away from exclusivity toward a
world “where everyone, all and always has
their sacred place.”

These are some of the voices, some of
their prepccupations and tonalities, that
abound in this book. You can start listening
anywhere, there is no linear sequence. You
can wander amidst this se.ctor of Babel, fol¬
lowing your intellectual or .poetic ear wher^
ever it leads. But if you let your listening be
attentive you will, soon discover that it is
not enough,to listen, you must also speak.
You must add your voice to the tumult that
is sorting itself out, your ideas to the con¬
versations, your energy to the struggles. ★

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Settlers: the Mythology •

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AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1995 • LOVE AND RAGE • PAGE 17

unesp'^' Cedap

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20

Demise of the Beehive Collective: Infoshops

BY Brad Sigal

n April, 1995 the Beehive Community
Space 8t Infoshop in Washington, DC
shut its doors. The Beehive Autonomous
Collective, which started and operated the
infoshop, had started meeting in July 1993,
and opened the infoshop in October, 1993.
This article will analyze some of what hap¬
pened at Beehive and attempt to draw some
lessons that might be useful for the
Infoshop movement and the anarchist
movement in general. I was involved with
Beehive for the entire life span of the
group. In this article I am only speaking for
myself as one member of the project.

WHAT IS AN INFOSHOP?

An infoshop is a space where people
involved with radical movements and
countercultures can trade information,
meet and network with other people ft
groups, and hold meetings and/or events.
They often house “free schools” and educa¬
tional workshops. Infoshops have existed
in Europe fbr decades. The Spanish revolu¬
tionary infoshops of the 1930s, and the
current European infoshops provided some
of the inspiration for the newer North
American infoshops.

THE NORTH AMERICAN
INFOSHOP MOVEMENT

While a few bookstores/infoshops existed
in the 1980s, the current wave of infos¬
hops basically started in the aftermath of
the Gulf War in 1991. Their growth seems
to have in some ways been a direct
response to frustrations some anarchists
felt trying to organize a movement against
the Gulf War without any institutions to
draw upon or sustain day-to-day activism
In our communities. The Long Haul infos¬
hop in the"* Bay Area and the Emma Center
in Minneapolis served as inspirations and
models for some of the other infoshops.
The more punk music oriented spaces like
Epicenter in San Francisco and
Reconstruction Records in New York were
also inspirations for some people.

ORIGINS OF BEEHIVE
& DRAWING LESSONS

Like many of today’s infoshops, Beehive’s
origins are in the punk-rock counterculture.
It developed out of the contradictions fac¬
ing the DC punk community in 1993. Many
people in the DC punk scene had been
politically active since the mid-1980s, and
many of the more popular DC punk bands

had political lyrics and had played many
benefit concerts during that time. While the
benefit concerts have continued, by 1993
the tendency toward activism in the punk
scene was fading. A few of us who had
been involved in punk- oriented activist
groups, such as Positive Force, Riot Grrrl
and Food Not Bombs, were feeling more
isolated from the rest of the punk scene. We
came together out of the experiences we
had in these other groups, in a mostly unar-
ticulated attempt to move beyond the con¬
fines of the “punk scene” to become more
involved with and relevant to other DC
communities. Others who hadn’t been pre¬
viously involved in DC punk/political
groups also got involved, attracted to the
concept of either a “free space,” a record
store or a hangout space.

LITTLE PARTICIPATION
FROM LOCAL COMMUNITY

One of the most noticeable things about
Beehive’s beginning was that almost all of
the people who got involved were not from
DC—and eyen further, many people had
just recently moved to DC Only a few peo¬
ple who were ever involved with Beehive
actually grew up in the DC area or had
lived here more than a couple of years.
This helped produce a larger problem—none
of the people in the collective were from
the particular neighborhood where we
opened our infoshop, and we never suc¬
ceeded in attracting neighborhood resi¬
dents to the project.

When Beehive was starting out, the fact
that so many people were from out of
town was refreshing, as it strengthened
the waning “political” tendency in the DC
punk scene. But in retrospect it was a
weakness which caused a continual short¬
sightedness, and contributed to the
group’s end.

This “transient” tendency isn’t surprising
considering the social base Beehive came
out of. The punk scene is generally young,
politically inexperienced and has very high
turnover. There is a strong commitment to
individual and/or spontaneous acts of cre¬
ativity (bands, fanzines, fashion, etc.) but a
non-committal or skeptical attitude toward
organized movements or organizations. To
start a community- based organization such
as an infoshop, however, requires long-term
thinking and commitment. This basic ten¬
sion- between the attention span and com¬
mitment level of our social base, and the
commitment necessary to do what we said
we wanted to do-was a problem in Beehive
from beginning to end.

DOMINANCE OF
PUNK-ROCK CULTURE

The fact that Beehive came out of the punk-
rock community isn’t inherently bad by any
means. But we need to recognize the limita¬
tions of the punk scene, and how those limi¬
tations make a community organizing pro¬
ject very difficult, if not impossible.

At Beehive we also experienced the
strange tendency for punk to dominate all
that it comes in contact with. While Beehive
was started by punks, some non-punk anar¬
chists and other activists were attracted to it
at first. But none of the non-punk activists
stayed involved, and it wasn’t until the last
few months of the group that a few more
non-punk anarchists got involved. While
the non-punks who left had their individual
reasons for leaving the group, I think in
most cases it was partly related to the domi¬
nance of punk in the group.

Since the visible activities happening at
Beehive were punk-related, more middle-
class punks continued to be attracted to the
project, mostly from outside of DC So we
were continually treading water, always
saying we wanted to “get beyond” the punk
community and interact with and involve
people from the neighborhood around us,
but continually attracting more and more
punks (with varying degrees of commitment
to community organizing). This further
strengthened the association of Beehive
with the punk scene, and made it increas¬
ingly more difficult to attract other commu¬
nities to the project.

The answer to this question is not easy,
as punk has probably done more than any¬
thing else in the last 20 years to popularize
anarchism and to articulate the anti¬
authoritarianism of alienated white youth.
Punk culture should exist, and thrive, in
radical spaces, but it shouldn’t dominate.

There is an underlying strain of arro¬
gance and elitism to much of punk culture,
a belief that “the masses are asses” or that
everyone else is just stupid and conforms to
society’s expectations. Also the fact that
punks tend to come from white, middle-
class backgrounds means that many punks
have more resources and money at their dis¬
posal to develop their projects than do peo¬
ple from more working-class countercul¬
tures. This factor makes it easy for punk to
unintentionally dominate a space-many
punks receive “hidden” support from parents
and middle-class jobs, which allow more
punk bands to buy nicer equipment, put out
their own records, tour more easily, etc.

GENTRIFICATION

When we started looking for a building to
move our community space into, we were
immediately confronted with the high cost
of rent in DC. The cheapest rent we were
able to find—somewhat near a subway sta¬
tion and somewhat near where some of us
lived-was in a neighborhood that is in the
process of gentrification.

Gentrification is the process by which a
working-class or poor urban neighborhood
starts to become desirable to middle-class or
yuppie people (“gentry”) from outside of that
neighborhood. One of the main desirable fac¬
tors is the cheap rent. Once middle-class peo¬
ple move in, they start to make “improve¬
ments,” demand more police presence to pro¬
tect their property, and businesses start to
appear to cater to their middle-class and yup¬
pie tastes. As the neighborhood becomes
more “desirable” for people with more
money, property values start to rise, and the
original poor or working-class residents of
the neighborhood can’t keep up with the ris¬
ing costs and have to move out. It is a
process of colonization on a smaller level.

Some of us repeatedly raised the issue of
gentrification in the group while we were
deciding where to locate our infoshop. We
were conscious of our role as outsiders to
the U Street neighborhood we were consid¬
ering, and we were weary of the “revitaliza¬
tion” going on a few blocks down the
street. The U Street Et 14th Street corridors
were burned out in April 1968 in the urban
uprisings after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
was assassinated.

Until the early 90s, the commercial corri¬
dors remained partly vacant while sur¬
rounding neighborhoods suffered from the
violence and decay that has wreaked havoc
on inner cities over the past 30 years.

Around when we were looking at the
neighborhood, a group of new “hip” busi¬
nesses had joined together to market the
concept of “The New U,” which was used in

ads in citywide papers to try to attract out¬
siders to come shop the new U Street busi¬
nesses. The “New U” businesses down the
street hit a nerve with us because many of
them were started by people from our com¬
munity-punks and alternative types. Since
they were from our community, we wanted
to differentiate from them, but in reality we
didn’t really know how.

We didn’t want to contribute to the gen¬
trification process, although none of us had
a clear idea of how to oppose it. We agreed
that we would try to be different than the
stores of “The New U” down the street. We
would be different because we would try to
serve needs of people who lived in the
neighborhood (through free clothing, free
food, and free daycare programs, for exam¬
ple) rather than trying to bring in yuppies
from outside with money. We knew we
would make mistakes, but we didn’t see
ourselves as contributing to gentrification
as long as we were actively struggling
against it politically.

Gentrification turned out to be one of the
two major divisive issues in Beehive, and it
seems to be that way at most infoshops
around the US.

INTERNAL GROUP DYNAMICS:
RACE, CLASSSGENDER

Other than gentrification, it was internal
group dynamics centering on race, class
and gender that were the most pressing and
most divisive issues that Beehive faced. This
also seems to mirror the experience of other
infoshops around the US. We had a series
of internal conflicts which escalated in
intensity, until May 1994 when two mem¬
bers and two non-members of the group
confronted the rest of the group in a very
abrasive way for what they saw as sexism,
classism and racism in the way the group
operated. Those of us involved in Beehive
learned a lot from these internal struggles.
It forced us to confront many of our per¬
sonal motivations and approaches, to try to
figure out which of our actions come out of
our genuinely progressive aspirations, and
which come from our culturally brain¬
washed upbringing in a white-supremacist,
patriarchal, and capitalist society.

Unfortunately, some who supported
Beehive but weren’t directly involved
seemed turned off or intimidated by the
perceived hostile infighting. This further
isolated us from the community that we
originally emerged from.

More importantly, I think these interna!
struggles happened in a way that was discon¬
nected to any practice of trying to change
oppressive institutions in society, and with¬
out seeing that our mistakes were not just
due to our individual shortcomings, but were
being replicated by many other groups at the
same time. Although it wasn’t easy to see at
the time, the struggles over internal dynamics
in the group escalated precisely when it had
become clear that Beehive wasn’t accom¬
plishing the political goals that we claimed to
aspire to. The free daycare never happened. A
proposal for a community organizing project
was passed but then never acted on. Anti-
gentrification discussion and efforts had been
pushed into the background. Other activist
groups weren’t using Beehive as a meeting
space or resource center. The lending library
was falling apart.

This wasn’t because we didn’t care about
these things anymore. We just hadn’t real¬
ized how much work it would take just to
maintain and staff the infoshop, let alone
actually using it as a base from which to
launch activist projects. Once we had rented
a building and moved in, it took all our
energy (and then some!) to just staff and
open the infoshop three days a week (we
would have liked to have been open eveiy
day). Repairs to the building were never
made. Bureaucratic paperwork with the gov¬
ernment to make our infoshop “legal” was
never filled out-partly because we decided
not to, but even if we had wanted to we just
weren’t organized enough to handle it.

Among the people who were consistently
involved with the group, many of us trav¬
eled for weeks or months at a time and our
involvement varied accordingly. Core peo¬
ple moved away from DC at a few key
moments in the group’s history. There was
never a clear sense that people would be
around very long. This “come and go” situ¬
ation among core members and the high
turnover among others made it impossible
to progress on internal group dynamics.

For example, at a meeting one week, a
woman would confront the group about

community center

Bee Hive Advert

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28

Ain't the Revolution

sexism, and we would agree to spend the
next meeting discussing the situation in
depth. Then at the next meeting there
would only be a few people there who were
at the previous meeting. Everyone else there
missed “the incident” and had no idea what
was happening or why it was suddenly so
urgent to spend the whole meeting talking
about our sexism. The discussions on inter¬
nal dynamics would mostly consist of
uncomfortable silence. The people who
brought the issue up in the first place
would say what they thought, and there
would be some hesitant discussion, but real
group dialogue on these issues almost never
happened. We just weren’t able to handle it
as a group.

Transience makes it impossible to deal
with internal dynamics. To get anywhere on
such issues, I think a group needs to have a
somewhat stable membership who can work
out interpersonal dynamics over time, and
the group also needs to be actively strug¬
gling to bring about change outside of
itself. Otherwise, dealing with internal
dynamics becomes all-consuming, and
becomes more like group therapy than
struggling to change the society we live in.
(This is not to degrade therapy for those
who want or need it to deal with life in a
fucked up society; It is Just to say that
political organizing and therapy are differ¬
ent things, and we should be clear which
one we want to be doing at what times.)

Some people attracted to counter-institu¬
tions, like many other political projects, like
this act in oppressive ways (intentionally or
not) and take up more than their share of
the group’s time in dealing with their per¬
sonal problems or idiosyncrasies. I don’t
think we should be afraid of criticizing or
“alienating” people who are detracting from
the focus of the group or making others feel
uncomfortable. I think we need to commit
ourselves to finding ways to deal seriously
with oppressive aspects of our group
dynamics in a way that encourages people
to speak, grow, and learn to become better
activists through experience and comradely
criticism.

NO UNIFYING VISION, NO CLEAR

GOALa NO STRATEGY

The other missing link in dealing with inter¬
nal dynamics is a clear sense of vision in
the group. If everyone involved is clear
about the purpose of the group (i.e. if the
purpose and goals are worked out at the
beginning, and clarified into a written state¬
ment) then the group can always refer back
to that to see if its outward activities and
internal dynamics are actually helping to
fulfill those goals or not But with Beehive,
and I think at many other infoshops too, we
never truly had political agreement on what
our goals or purpose were.

We did have a statement of purpose, but
it was crafted in a carefully vague way to
basically allow for anything and avoid
making choices about a specific course of
action. We defined Beehive as, “an all vol¬
unteer collective promoting communication
through books, records, ‘zines, performance,
meetings, and social/political networking.
In our attempt to break the cycle of an his¬
torically classist, sexist, racist, heterosexist
and authoritarian social system, we feel it is
imperative to oppose capitalist oppression.
It has denied us self-realization and free
association. Beehive intends to bridge the
ever increasing gap between privilege and
underdevelopment by providing access to
space and information at low cost or free.
We will: be organic, radical, wild, and revo¬
lutionary; creative and critical locally and
internationally.”

When you take away what we are
abstractly for ft against, that leaves only
promoting communication and providing a

space for other people to “do their own
thing.” While this is a good thing to do, it
does not differ fundamentally from the mis¬
sion of a public library, for example. And I
would argue in the current context, at least
in DC, it is not the most valuable use of our
energies in building a revolutionary anti¬
authoritarian movement.

While our statement took some political
stands (against capitalism, racism, sexism,
heterosexism), we did not have a political
focus of our own to fight against those
things. By coming out against those things
politically while having no program to work
against them, we were setting ourselves up to
be tom apart by struggles over those oppres¬
sions in the internal dynamics of the group-
and that’s what happened. This shows why it
is important to have an agreed upon purpose
for the group, as well as an attempt to create
a strategy to realize those goals.

Having no agreed upon purpose creates
one set of problems that will probably lead
to misunderstandings and frustration, fac¬
tionalism, and people leaving the group
confused or frustrated about what the
group is supposed to be doing. Having a
unified purpose but no strategy creates
another similar set of problems, which will
also often cause people to become frustrat¬
ed and look to each others’ individual
shortcomings for the source of the problem,
rather than trying to create a strategy to
have an effect on the world around us.
Most infoshops seem to be stuck in one or
the other of these problems; Beehive was
usually somewhere in between.

THE UNSTATED (DISIIDEOLODY
OF INFOSHOPS

While Beehive’s political statement avoided
articulating a specific strategy or focus, we
were still following an unspoken strategy.
The failure to articulate a strategy doesn’t
mean that you don’t have one, it Just means
that you haven’t consciously worked
through it as a group. I think most infos¬
hops try to take the easy way out of devel¬
oping and implementing a strategy to reach

our stated ideals, by stating our purpose
simply as sharing information and provid¬
ing a space for people to use. This creates a
big gap between our stated goals (against
capitalism, racism, sexism, heterosexism)
and our actual activities (educational and
logistical support work). We had revolu¬
tionary ideas but little strategy to work
toward realizing them.

COUNTER-INSTITUTIONS
AS "THE REVOLUTION"?

As you can probably tell by now, I don’t
see infoshops or counter-institutions as “the
answer” or “the strategy” for building a
revolutionary anarchist movement. I do,
however, think that they can be an impor¬
tant part of a strategy, if there is a mass
movement to support and sustain them.
Some people (though probably not many in
the anarchist infoshop movement) do see
counter-institutions as “the revolution.”
Their strategy basically says that through
creating non- profit cooperatives (food co¬
ops, free medical clinics, housing co-ops,
etc.) we will set examples of a different type
of society and serve the needs of our com¬
munities, which others will then copy. The
counter-institutions will continue to gain
power and will be able to serve the needs of
the people, making the current power struc¬
tures irrelevant without having to struggle
directly against them.

What this strategy leaves out is that the
institutions in power now have an interest
in staying in power, and will fight to pre¬
serve and expand their power. They will
struggle directly against our counter-insti¬

tutions whether we fight them or not. So
without a means to directly confront them,
our counter-institutions will be crushed
when they are perceived as enough of a
threat to the status quo.

However, in the current political context
without strong mass movements, the
greater danger to counter-institutions is
being co-opted into a harmless “alternative”
without revolutionary content. We can see

this in many food co-ops that started in the
co-op upsurge of the early 1970s which are
now catering increasingly to a yuppie clien¬
tele and adopting more of a capitalist
approach. I think this shows that counter¬
institutions are not inherently revolution¬
ary—they can go in many directions.

COUNTER-INSTITUTIONS ,
AS A FOUNDATION FOR
REVOLUTIONARY GROWTH?

A more developed analysis sees infoshops
not as inherently revolutionary but as one
part of a revolutionary strategy. As Jacinto
from Chicago’s Autonomous Zone Infoshop
wrote in the first issue of (dis)connection,
“the revolution is not in the formation of
these counter-institutions, but in the revolu¬
tionary potential of the collectives which can
use the resources provided by liberated
spaces." Jacinto argues that building sustain¬
able radical counter-institutions now will
provide a launching pad for all sorts of radi¬
cal projects and collectives. This strategy
makes sense-it sees the need for building
ongoing institutions to sustain radical
activism, and it also sees the limitations of
those counter- institutions by themselves.
This strategy says that the missing ingredi-
ent-the reason there are not more radical
projects and collectives—is that there is not a
base of support, information, arfd resources
for such projects to develop. According to
this strategy, if we build infoshops as that
base, then the amount of activist projects in
our communities should grow.

This was the unstated strategy that I was
pursuing through Beehive, and I think it’s
the unstated strategy of a lot of people who
are involved in infoshops. While this strate¬
gy sounds good, it did not work in practice
for us, and I don’t see much evidence of it
working elsewhere. One possibility is that
Beehive did not survive long enough to
“bear fruit” in the form of new projects and
collectives. But as it was, our whole group
was drained Just keeping the Beehive infos¬
hop afloat and staffed from week to week.
The anarchist and radical communities are
Just too small in DC to sustain an anarchist
infoshop and to also develop other projects.
Rather than building the basis for further
growth of radical projects, my experience is
that infoshops will bum out the core group
of activists and thus prevent them from
developing or contributing to new projects.

WHERE TO FROM HERE:
REVOLUTIONARY PLURALISM &
INFOSHOPS AS A PART OF A
REVOLUTIONARY STRATEGY

This is the situation we find ourselves in—in
North America in 1995 we are trying to build
a revolutionary anti- authoritarian movement
on almost no solid foundation. Many young
anarchists realize that we need ongoing insti¬
tutions to sustain our work during the high
points and low points of mass movements.
Over the past few years, many of us have
tried to build local infoshops and community
centers to fulfill that function.

At best, the results have been mixed.
Most of the infoshop collectives have
attracted new people to anarchist politics,
and have given anarchists an ongoing pro¬
ject to work on that at least has the poten¬
tial to deal with the issues faced by
oppressed and alienated people in our daily
lives. Some of the infoshops have improved
the reputation of anarchists in their cities
by having a visible example of their poli¬
tics, while a couple have also taken militant
direct action on neighborhood issues such

as gentrification.

At the same time, every infoshop I know
of has experienced severe interna! prob¬
lems, with serious factional fights and with
many people leaving infoshops frustrated,
angry, or burnt out. The factional fights
and splits have escalated to vandalism or
threats of violence at places like Emma
Center in Minneapolis, Beehive in DC, and
Epicenter in San Francisco.

While much of the initial point of start¬
ing infoshops waS to create a stable, ongo¬
ing presence in a particular city or commu¬
nity, some infoshops which opened with
lofty expectations are already closed, such
as .Croatan in Baltimore and Beehive in DC
Other infoshops which are still open have
already had to move once or twice, like
Chicago’s A-Zone. And of all the infoshops
I’m familiar with, I can’t think of any that
have helped facilitate the starting of new
projects or collectives except as hostile
splits from the infoshop collective! Other
projects that have developed probably
would have formed anyway without the
existence of the infoshops.

In cities where active anarchist projects
and collectives already exist, it might make
sense to set up an infoshop. But generally
infoshops haven’t been very successful at
supporting and helping develop new pro¬
jects. I think this is because of a lack of
open discussion about our politics, vision,
and strategy. While skills-sharing is crucial
to helping disempowered and alienated
people take control over our lives, I think
the “missing ingredient” in the lack of new
anarchist projects is our lack of a political
vision for the future, and our lack of devel¬
oping realistic strategies to move toward
that vision. Can we really consider infos¬
hops a cornerstone of a revolutionary
movement if we can’t have a discussion
about anything deeper than what color to
paint the room without causing a major
split in the collective?

To deal with these questions, I think we
need to take a step back from the specific
political projects, such as infoshops, that
we’ve chosen to work on. I don’t mean to
say that we should abandon such projects,
but that they are bound to fail unless we
simultaneously take a step back and build
stable, ongoing political collectives, orga¬
nizations, or other forums as a political
infrastructure for our movement. The
focus of such organizations hsoul be
specifically to develop political vision and
strategy, and hen work to implement that
strategy. These can be local, regional,
national or international groupings. Love
and Rage is one example of such a group,
but there are many such organizations
with varying visions and strategies that
will be part of any revolutionary move¬
ment. This is what I think of when I think
of “revolutionary pluralism,”

Infoshops may be one aspect of a politi¬
cal strategy that such political groupings
could develop. But infoshops aren’t a strat¬
egy in themselves, and are failing as a
shortcut for working through our political
differences and coming up with coherent
visions and strategies to realize an anar¬
chist future. I don’t think that it’s a mistake
to work on infoshops, and I wouldn’t say
that the two years working on Beehive
were a waste of time, as long as we are
willing to admit our shortcomings and
honestly sum up that experience to learn
from it an move forward. This article is my
attempt to do that, and my view is that it’s
time to work on other projects instead of
starting another infoshop. ★

[(dis)connection is “n networking journal
for radical collectives and counter-institu¬
tions/' Two issues have come out so far. For
copies contact A-Zone, 2045 W. North Ave,
Chicago, IL 60622.]

bsigal@capaccess.org * pobox 18672 wash dc

20036 * 202-728-3899 * contact me for info on:

claustrophobia abc * beehive collective * love &
rage anti-prison working group *

hlvt(hlv)n. 1 . A natural or artificial structure
for houang be^ esp. honeybees. 2. A colony
of bees living m a hive. 3. A place crowded
with busy people. (< OE hff.] —Wvt v.

bM n. I.Any of various winged^ usu.
stinging insects that gather nectar and pollen
from flowers and in some ^)ecies p^uce
honey. 2. A gathering where people work to¬
gether or conqpete. -^Idhm. a baa in (ona’s)
bonnat An idea that fills most of one’s
thoughts. [< OE bid]

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1995 • LOVE AND RAGE • PAGE 19

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Black Power, Student Power

An Interview with Black Radical Activist Bill Sales

BY Meg Star

uring the 1960s Bill Sales was a radical
student activist. His experiences show
how the Black student movement was
shaped by the overall Black liberation move¬
ment and how Black students in turn helped
shape the white student movement.

It is interesting to compare Bill’s version
of the early stages of SDS (Students for a
Democratic Society) and the Columbia Strike
(an important occupation of buildings at
New York City’s Columbia University by
Black and white students in 1968) with
more mainstream and white-centered
accounts of the same period. His stories also
bring to life the incredible radical diversity
and power of the Black Liberation move¬
ment. Readers interested in learning more
should read Bill’s latest book. From Civil
Rights to Black Liberation: Malcolm X and
the Organization of Afro-American Unity
(South End Press, Boston, 1994).

UOF PENN AND THE NAACP

Meg Star: How did you become an activist
as a student?

Bill Sales: “I vyas involved with the student
chapter of the NAACP at the University of
Pennsylvania in 1962. I had first come in
contact with the movement on that campus
through some people who were members of
RAM. (The Revolutionary Action movement
was a semi-clandestine organization that,
beginning in 1963, attempted to combine
mass direct action with the tactics of self-
defense to push the movement towards rev¬
olutionary politics.] Two members in partic¬
ular were friends of mine: Max Stanford
[Muhamed Ahmed] and Stanley Davis. I
knew Max from high school, and Stanley
was a student at Penn before we became
active. We all ran track together, believe it
or not.”

In 1962 the Penn Chapter of the NAACP
invited Malcolm X to speak on campus, and
they picketed Democratic Party Headquarters
in Philadelphia to support Robert Williams.
Williams had been the president of the
NAACP in Monroe County, NC until 1959,
when he called for armed defense in the face
of growing KKK violence. During the next
several years James Farmer, the Rev. Leon
Sullivan, and many other Civil Rights leaders
also spoke on campus.

BS: “Then I went to the march on Washington
and was very impressed by all the goings on, I
wanted to come back and assume the leader¬
ship of the NAACP on campus; I wasn’t satis¬

fied with its level of activism,”

In the meantime, during the summer of
‘63, CORE [The Congress of Racial Equality
was a direct-action-oriented civil-rights
group that emphasized community based
actions in Northern cities.] and the NAACP
were confronting de facto segregation of
construction sites in Philadelphia. Bill’s two
radical friends were arrested after being
beaten by the police at one site. U of Penn
was undergoing major renovation, so the
students confronted the university’s own
hiring practices.

“Now all during the four years at Penn I
was being exposed to different ideological
currents, both i» the Civil Rights Movement
and in what came to be the New Left. I didn’t
have the slightest idea that that was what it
was at the time. In my senior year, protesting
segregation; I came in close contact with
CORE and the NAACP. I can put it this way: 1
developed a greater appreciation for CORE
and an utter disdain for the NAACP,”

BLACK STUDENTS ORGANIZE

When Bill graduated from Penn he went to
Columbia University to do graduate work.
He arrived in the fall of 1964, the fall after
African-American students organized on
campus.

“A year after I left Penn Bob Brand, a
white student from the NAACP, got in touch
with me. He asked my permission to convert
that chapter into an SDS chapter because at
that point the only people left were white
students who were very much interested in
the anti-war situation. Many of those guys
who became important in SDS got their first
exposure in civil rights activity.”

Bill arrived at Columbia in 1964, the
same semester that the Students Afro-
American Society was founded. In the mid-
’60s campuses that for centuries had been
lily-white were opening the doors to Black
students for the first time. Columbia,
Harvard and Yale were a little ahead of the
majority of campuses.

“A whole lot of debate was going on
about identity, about who we were as Black
students, and what was our responsibility to
the movement.”

The numbers of Black students were
increasing every semester and the class base
of the students accepted by the college was
becoming more working class, which
affected the level of militance.

“There was a basis for effective group
action. People sensed that potential, and
also, no Black person at this time could get
away without defining their lives at least in
part in terms of the struggle that was going
on in the larger society.”

While Bill studied Swahili and met
African leaders in the internationalist com¬
munity around Columbia, he also reunited
with Max Stanford.

“Max had been working with Malcolm in
the OAAU period [the Organization of Afro-
American Unity] and I ran into him shortly
after Malcolm was assassinated. Max helped
me get oriented to the scene in NY.”

"GYM" CROW & EARLY ALLIANCES

In ‘68 the off-campus and on-campus move¬
ments were to come together. Columbia
University had admitted Black students while
continuing to be a smug and racist institu¬
tion, completely out of touch with the neigh¬
boring Harlem community. The university
occupies a small area of land, one side of
which is a cliff overlooking the public
Momingside Park, which is used primarily by
the HariL .i community. Columbia worked out
an arrangement through its shady Board of
Trustees’ ruling-class connections to lease
public land for the site of a new gym.
Originally the gym was intended to be in
Momingside Park, and to be completely
closed to community residents. When the
community objected to that Columbia started
construction of two gyms: a large one for
Columbia students and a smaller one for the
community residents. Protesting the “Jim
Crow Gym" brought together many different
insurgent communities.

Already alliances between SDS and the
African American students organization
had developed through two experiences. By
1967 the university had allowed the student
athletes to be developed into a right-wing
firing squad that attacked SDS demonstra¬
tions.

“So one day Black students went out
there. We had our own beef with these cats
because they were racists. So we joined in to
help the SDS guys because those people just
didn’t know how to fight. Not that they
weren’t game, they just didn’t know what to
do in that kind of situation. So we went out
and knocked heads with these jocks.”

CORE was trying to organize a union
among the mostly African-American and
Latino workers on campus. Black students

and some of SDS became involved.

“Ted Gold, one of the activists that got
blown up in the townhouse [a member of
Weatherman who was killed during an
explosion at a safe house in NY on March
6, 1970], was very active in that. We all
knew Gold long before we knew Rudd and
those cats. The hell with them! They were
off on some trip, but we knew the folks that
were down. They were down long before it
was fashionable to be down,

“One of the things that really got to me
about Rudd was how you write a book con¬
fessing all the things you did were wrong.
That’s bullshit! It wasn’t wrong just because
you lost and it didn’t work. There’s a differ¬
ence between winning and losing and being
wrong.”

Alliances off-campus were also very
important to the Black students. In ‘67 these
was a Black Power Conference in Maryland
that had a special meeting for student
activists.

“There were no more than 10 or 15 peo¬
ple in the place, but the following spring we
were all involved in building takeovers on
our different campuses. Herman Ferguson
[an important Black activist and political
prisoner, Ferguson was involved both in the
Republic of New Afrika and the OAAU] was
there that day; he was already on the lam.”

Bill became involved in an underground
student group called “cadre.” The members
were at different campuses. They took
karate, studied, and made contact with var¬
ious groups in Harlem.

MS: Why were you clandestine?

BS: “This was an era when people got shot.

H. Rap Brown was already underground.
Some of the people we worked with were
underground. It wasn’t as if we were plan¬
ning to blow things up. But we felt that what
we were doing was objectively revolution-
aiy. And you just didn’t run around in a
public organization. We assigned ourselves
public organizations on campus to be in.”

THE COLUMBIA STRIKE

In April and May of 1968 Columbia
University exploded into the famous strike
and blockade. During those months over

I, 000 students occupied four buildings on
campus, fought the police, and held a dean
hostage (briefly).

The role of the Black students in these
events has been somewhat eclipsed in pop¬
ular accounts. After describing the alliances
on campus and off-campus that had been
developed over the previous years. Bill
described the day the decision was made to
occupy the first building.

“1968 in some ways appeared to be spon¬
taneous. On the day the takeover occurred
none of us had planned a takeover.”

Bill and his friends went down to an SDS
demonstration at the sundial [a central
location on the main part of the Columbia
campus] to fight the jocks and to support
the new president of the Afro-American
Students Organization who was speaking.

“When I got there I swear there were
5,000 people. It was a total shocker. I
expected 200 people or so—the usual
demonstration. The jocks were completely
neutralized. The demonstration started by
tiying to take some demands into the presi¬
dent of Columbia University, but he closed
his office building. The Black students want¬
ed to storm the building, but Rudd said no.
Someone in Progressive Labor said: ‘Let’s
charge the gym site.’ So we all ran down.”

Community activists and campus
activists had recently been arrested demon¬
strating at the site.

“We ran down 1,000 strong and all hell
broke loose. It’s the first and only time I
ever got into actual combat with the police.
We should have all been dead but there was
a sergeant who pulled his forces back. At
that time I was tiying to break this cop’s
thumb because I said “If he gets his gun out
I’m a dead person.”

I had only jumped him because one of
his associates had started hitting one of
our guys and then one of CADRE punched
him out. This guy was facing me so I

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20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

“They didn’t want to get everything
through the guys. That meant that indepen¬
dently they had come to the same decisions
we had come to, and they had a structure
for functioning. When the shit hit the fan
they weren’t tailing behind the men.”

After the confrontation at the gym site
SDS and the Black students occupied the first
building. While SDS leaders remained
ambiguous about the decisions to occupy
buildings for several days, the Black Students
were firm from the beginning and influenced
the actions of the rest of the campus.

THE MOVEMENT TODAY?

When asked about the Black movement
today Bill said:

white communitie s you can get murdered!

A third point is not to get manipulated
by feelings of guilt. There are a whole lot of
opportunists in the Black and Latino com¬
munities who’ll try to manipulate you
because you are white. You have to stand
up for what you believe in, _

And then of course it’s important to
study hard, be humble, and really listen. I
know that as a 52-year-o!d one of the real¬
ly frustrating things is trying to pass on
your knowledge to the generation coming
behind, because they think they know more
than you already. But without an open
mind you can screw up and repeat past
'mistakes.’”^

“There is no Black movement today. There
are a number of different people who are
struggling as organizations or individuals, but
a movement would imply a consensus on
some very basic demands; a clear understand-

The Columbia Strike

Black Power, Student Power

grabbed his wrist and twisted him around.
I didn’t want to fight this cat and he did¬
n’t want to fight me. I said I can take this
guy; he’s scared of me. He’ll shoot me out
of fear if he gets his gun out. People don’t
realize how things escalate. Lethal con¬
frontations that nobody means to hap-
pen-people were all fighting and this
sergeant comes down and tells his men to
back off and leave us alone. He recog¬
nized that it was Harlem and if they
grabbed a bunch of Black students all hell
would break loose.”

Bill stressed how many different people
had their own organizations then and were
prepared for confrontation. The Black
women on campus, repulsed by the sexism
of the African-American students group,
had their own organization with their own
community contacts.

ing of who the enemy is and some notion of
what the future would look like. We don’t
have that yet. I hope we’re building to it...

MS: Is there anything you’d like to say
about white solidarity?

BS: “I think there are some obvious errors
that white leftists have made that they
don’t need to make again! The arrogance
and paternalism in relationship to the Black
movement—to assume that you know

what’s right for everyone because you have
a revolutionary analysis of society, etc., etc.
To see a certain kind of division of labor-
you provide the intellectual muscle and the
troops come from various Third World
communities-that’s disastrous.

A second thing that we really want is to
build up a left inside of white working-class
communities. We need to develop another
pole in the communities that have been
conceded to the fascists. That has been very
difficult to do and very dangerous. That’s
why it’s not done much! It’s actually easier
for a white person to work in communities
of color. Once they know you’re for real,
people aren’t hostile to you, whereas in the

NY Committee on Consultation

Mark Cook

(Continued from page 12)

clothing. After 18 years I was “free.” In an
written article in the Seattle Post
Intelligencer shortly after the feds let me
go, the parole board boss was quoted as
saying that my release was a “mistake,”
that they thought I had several more years
of imprisonment to serve.

The board was wrong. I was not released
early. My release came 10 years too late. I
should have been released, and could have
been released safely, back in 1983 rather than
1993. That’s one of the problems with correc¬
tions today, they don’t know when it is time
to release someone. They don’t even care.
And that’s what makes the experience such a
destructive one, to you as well as to us.

I am out here today not because I
deserve it, but because I was a troublemak¬
er. In contrast to my case, Mark Cook has
maintained a good record in prison. He was
active in the struggle for prisoner rights,
and filed prosecuted litigation in behalf of
the labor and safety rights of prisoners,
especially those working in the prison’s
industrial area. But unlike me, in the earlier
years of my confinement, he did not do his
prison work violently. At Walla Walla I
was busted having three home-made hand
grenades, a pistol, and 80 round of ammu¬
nition. So I am now on the outside. And
Mark is in prison. Yet I am the more culpa¬
ble, both while inside the walls and out
here in minimum custody before my
imprisonment.

So why is Mark still in prison? Just how
much should a person serve for committing
crimes such as those allegedly committed
by Mark Cook and his comrades? There are
three things that need to be looked at:
Firstly, you should look at the amount of
time served by darlings of the right wing
who are convicted of political crimes.
Secondly, the amount of time served by
social prisoners convicted of the same type
of crime Mark was convicted of, that being
two counts of first-degree assault. And
thirdly, the amount of time served by oth¬
ers in the Brigade for committing the same
range of crimes. On the first point, the
amount of time right-wing terrorists are
sentenced to, you can take it from me that
they receive relative pats on the back of the
hand in relation to the time given to left-
wing political offenders. The pro-capitalist

Cuban who blew up a Cuban airliner that
killed 76 people received something like
three years in a US prison. As for the issue
of social prisoners, according to the
Washington state department of statistics,
the average amount of time served in this
state for first-degree assault, and I averaged
the annual figures over a 10 year period, is
57.1 months, that’s under five years. Mark
is serving his nineteenth year, more than
most first-degree murderers, who on aver¬
age serve a little over 17 years. And thirdly,
we expect political prisoners on the left to
serve more time than social prisoners for
the same crime, just as we expect to be
treated more harshly than right-wing
offenders. Mark is also serving more time
than his white counterparts in the Brigade.
We are free. Janine Burtram is free. Rita Bo
Brown is free. Threse Coupez is free. I am
free. Yet Mark Cook, the only Black man
arrested in connection with Brigade
actions, remains in prison.

Mark would like people to ask three per¬
tinent questions of state parole and
clemency officials in Washington. These
are: (1) Why haven’t Mark Cook’s federal
and state terms run concurrently, like Ed
Mead’s sentence? (2) Why hasn’t the
Washington state parole board (ISRB) used
it’s discretion under the Sentence Reform
Act’s RCW 9.94A.400(3) to run Mark
Cook’s state and federal time concurrently?
And (3), if Ed Mead had two consecutive
life terms and Mark Cook had two concur¬
rent life terms, then why must Mark serve
more time than Ed did?

We of the Mark Cook Freedom
Committee are not seeking a break for
Mark Cook. That point was passed many,
many years ago. What we are asking for is
simple justice—something that is long past
due. To get justice from this state’s appara¬
tus of repression will require the involve¬
ment of a lot of people. One very important
person is the lawyer who will be doing
Mark’s clemency petition. The governor
had a hand in my release, I believe, and so
he should have a hand in Mark’s. But the
process of getting an attorney to file and
prosecute a clemency petition is a costly
one. We could use your support. Please
give what you can toward the legal
expenses involved in Mark’s petition for
clemency. Send contributions and requests
for more information to:

Mark Cook Freedom Committee
P.O. Box 85763
Seattle; WA
98145-2763 USA

(Con tin u ed from page 14)

the EZLN movement as local, national, or
international?

(3) “Should a profound political
reform be made in terms which guar¬
antee: equity, citizenship participation
(including the non-partisan and non¬
governmental), respect for the vote,
reliable voter registration of all the
national political, regional, and local
forces?”

According to the Zapatistas, this ques¬
tion is about the necessary pre-conditions
for peaceful political struggle. The lack of
(these) conditions . . . obliges citizens to
take up the clandestine and illegal struggle,
or skepticism and apathy.” Is this applica¬
ble to the US? While the EZLN acknowl¬
edges, “The electoral struggle is not the

whole of the political struggle,” and
“Electoral reform does not signify political
reform,” the Zapatistas have stated that “a
fair and free electoral system is necessary
for a transition to democracy.” Do you
agree? Some changes have been made in
the Mexican electoral system, but the EZLN
continues to call for the destruction of the
system of the party-State, a revolution and
not reform.” This is because the PRI party
has ruled Mexico for over 60 years and is
accused of maintaining its power through
electoral fraud. Can reform and revolution
be pursued simultaneously or are they
mutually exclusive? What about the US
electoral system? Are these issues relevant?
Why or why not?

(4) “Should the EZLN be converted
into a new independent political
force?”

(5) “Should the EZLN unite with other
forces and organizations to form a
new political organization?

According to the Zapatistas, “The fourth
and fifth questions are mutually exclusive.
To say ‘no’ to both means that one is saying
‘no’ to the question of whether the EZLN
should make itself a political force . . . (To
say) ‘yes,* then one still has to ask whether it
should be done alone ... or should it unite
with other forces in Mexico . . . We are not
asking if we should be incorporate ourselves
into one of the existing political forces . . .
because we do not feel represented by any of
the existing ones-.” Further, “(W)e are not
asking if we should disarm or not... Nor are
we asking if we should become a political
party, as (this) is only one of the many forms
that a political force can take. Until now the
EZLN has only called for organizing and
struggle for democracy, liberty and justice.
But as it is clandestine and armed, the EZLN
has not organized. We are not a political
force. We are a moral force or a catalyst of
new organizing forms ... Our opinion is lis¬

tened to by many people, and perhaps, fol¬
lowed. But it is not translated into organiza¬
tion. Perhaps our role is only to point out the
scarcities and open space for discussion and
new participation. Perhaps that is all our his¬
toric role is to be. Or perhaps, the time has
arrived for the Zapatista word not only to
move people or create consciousness; per¬
haps, the time has arrived for the word ‘orga¬
nizing’ to be Zapatista as well. This is what
we are asking.”

NY Committee for
Democracy in Mexico
PO Box 200413
Newark; NJ 07102
(212)592-9074
mblack@panix.com

[The New York Committee for Democracy
in Mexico is a member of the National
Commission for Democracy in Mexico and
has been designated by the EZLN to coordi¬
nate and promote US efforts for democracy,
social justice and liberty in Mexico.]

Until now the EZLN has only calledior organizing
and struggle for democracy, liberty and justice...
perhaps, the time has arrived for the word
"organizing" to be Zapatista as well.

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1995 • LOVE AND RAGE • PAGE 21

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28

Political Refugees Smash Prison

BY Wendy

he uprising of imprisoned immigrants
that happened early on Father’s Day
at a private Elizabeth, NJ prison, was
a natural reaction to deplorable, over¬
crowded conditions. The immigrants, many
of them refugees, arrived seeking political
asylum from dozens of different countries;
little did they know they were about to
embark on an Amerikan nightmare. They
were taken to a private prison located in a
former warehouse near the industrial sec¬
tion of Newark, NJ, where they were sepa¬
rated by sex—families broken apart. They
were subjected to abuse by guards, served
food that was cold and unnutritious, denied
access to phones and attorneys, and held
for months without any recourse. The
Immigration and Naturalization Service
(INS) was forced to investigate abuses
because of protests by NJ Rep. Robert
Menendez, detainees, and their attorneys.

The uprising at the Evans Street complex
was a desperate act to force attention to the
immigrants’ plight—a grand tribute to the
human spirit. The hundreds of prisoners
easily overtook the three guards by throw¬
ing blankets over their heads. They allowed
other workers to leave, then went to work
destroying a building which has no positive
purpose. Windows were broken, rooms
flooded with water from sprinklers and
broken pipes. Walls, toilets, beds, files,

everything in sight smashed to bits! They
built a 9-foot barricade out of tables, chairs
and other furniture. Cops realized it was
too late to negotiate when a bunch of rocks
were hurled at them and a portable phone
that was sent in for negotiations was
quickly smashed.

The immigrants held the Evans Street
building for several hours before a final
stand that ended in a Mace attack by the
cops and about 300 prisoners handcuffed
and bussed to county and federal jails in
NJ, NY and Penn.

The recent anti-immigration fervor is in
part caused by the Wbrld Trade Center
bombing backlash against Arab political
asylum cases. There are many conserva¬
tives who want to stop all immigration and
make it exceedingly difficult to get politi¬
cal asylum status. US treatment of Cubans
and Haitians in detainment prison camps
has drawn international attention to
human-rights abuses. This, coupled with
support of brutal' dictatorships by diplo¬
matic or economic aid, has led to the crim¬
inalization of political refugees, all under
the pretenses of freedom and democracy.
The Mexican border INS are becoming
increasingly more brutal, but we don’t hear
about Mexican political repression in, the
mainstream media. As the US builds more
prisons and allows profit from prison
labor, privately owned prisons such as this

one in Elizabeth, operated by the Esmor
Corp. of Melville, NY, are becoming big
business. We can see the first Indications
of the increased brutality of these privately
owned prisons.

We need an organized prison abolition
movement that goes beyond the Anarchist
Black Cross work of the past. We need to

be able to respond to situations immediate¬
ly, as well as have contacts with groups all
over North America and internationally.
This movement is in the beginning stages;
clearly there is a need to reach out to the
families and organizations who are fighting
the growth of these inhumane prisons,
which detain people indefinitely. ★

NOTES OF REVOLT

United Front Builds, then
Shuts Down Bridges

BY SuzY Martin
n April 25 a diverse group of
activists successfully shut down four
major New York City bridges. Traffic
was blocked, during rush hour, from 15
minutes to an hour at each location. The
locations were divided between 4 groups:
ACT-UP and neighborhood groups protest¬
ing Medicaid Cuts and hospital closings;
CUNY (City University of New York) stu¬
dents and public school teachers protesting
budget cuts in public education; and
groups opposed to police brutality and
racist and homophobic violence (including
the Committee Against Anti-Asian
Violence, the Congress for Puerto Rican
Rights, and families of those killed by
police). 185 people were arrested.

This action was significant both because
of its effectiveness in disrupting the func¬
tioning of the city and because it united in
practice activists from a broad range of
communities. Using the focused, media-
savvy civil disobedience technique that
ACT-UP perfected, the action got the city’s
attention. This successful cooperation
between different radical, grassroots groups
has been an inspiration to many New
Yorkers who have been hoping for a new,
radical mass movement to emerge.

The simultaneous demonstrations were
held the day before Mayor Guliani present¬
ed his budget for New York City. The bud¬
get includes, among other cuts in social
services, deep cuts to CUNY health care,
and establishes a 90-day limit for the
receipt of Home Relief money. The protests
were coordinated to emphasize the fact that
these cuts will be hurting many of the same

people—homeless people with AIDS, for
example. In the past, activists have often
been divided, as one group may prevent
certain budget cuts while other social ser¬
vices are cut deeper to compensate.

The planners of the action sought to
break out of this pattern of division. It took
a lot of work and months of secret, invita¬
tion-only meetings to build the coalition.
Many of the groups involved in the action
have identity-based politics that have nur¬
tured a distrust for other groups. But orga¬
nizing for Apr. 25th, each of the groups
having its own site and demands had
enough autonomy to build a sense of trust
among groups. They didn’t have to resolve
all of their differences to work together.

Each of the four site-groups in turn was
made up of a coalition of groups uniting
around one basic issue. Activists from the
Coalition for the Homeless organized
homeless people, shelter residents, formerly
homeless people, college students and law
students to block the Brooklyn Bridge.
Members of the Zulu Nation, a Black and
Latino street organization, the Committee
Against Anti-Asian Violence, and Asian
Lesbians of the East Coast worked together
with families of teenagers killed by the
police to block the Manhattan Bridge. This
coalition work, based on a consciousness of

racism, sexism, and homophobia within the
movement—a consciousness raised by iden¬
tity politics-is more inclusive than the
practice of the movements of the ‘60s,
when issues raised by subordinated groups
were often ignored.

The secrecy maintained during the
months of planning helped make the
protest effective. It was well organized and
caught the police off guard. It went beyond
the acceptable forms of protest in New
York City-authorities were outraged that
activists did not notify the police before the
civil disobedience.

Before the protest, activists planned to
cany their solidarity into jail. That solidari¬
ty was tested when the authorities decided
to put most of the activists through the
system—which meant at least another 24
hours in jail.

In the women’s holding cell, about half
of the jobs and housing group—each of
whom was given a summons and told to
leave—refused to go until everyone was let
out. The group was not large enough to
coerce the police into letting everyone go.
But the symbolic gesture of solidarity
meant something to CUNY students who
have been targeted for their movements
militancy and recent media success.

Most of the people involved in the Apr.
25th protest were not new activists, but
there was a new sense of energy. CUNY
students jumped over barriers and ran out
into highway traffic. A woman who lives
in a shelter refused to move as a cop tried
to drag her out of a jail cell and defeat her
act of solidarity. The sense of hope that
inspired these acts did not just come from
a possibility of defeating the budget cuts,
but from the new sense of unity achieved
in organizing this action. This unity was
not the result of abstract calls for unity
that exists when one group subordinates
its interests to another. It was unity built
in practice on the basis of respect for the
actual diversity and differences of experi¬
ence among the groups involved. Rather
than rejecting or denouncing the limita¬
tions of identity politics, Apr. 25th drew
from their strengths to transcend their
weaknesses. Apr. 25th represented the
potential such diverse grassroots groups
have for building an actual radical mass
movement when we work together. ★

Didn't Get Prison
News Service #5V.

U nfortunately, there was a major
screw-up with the mailing of that
issue (May-June 1995). The mailing
list preparation is done by an outside com¬
pany, but they work with the list and infor¬
mation we send them. Due to some simple
human error probably my own, the prisoner
numbers were left off the mailing labels.
Needless to say this meant that many of
them were not delivered. This really
depresses us since it means that many of
our subscribers are not going to see this
issue. It is also going to cost us a lot of
money since we’ll end up paying for them
to be returned. And we don’t have very
many copies left to mail out a second time
since we already reduced the number of
copes printed because our printing costs are
rising so much. This is the first time such a
screw-up happened and it will certainly be
the last time. Please pass the word around
to other prisoners who are wondering what
happened. Our next issue will be out in
September. Our commitment remains. But
we have to eat this loss of money and
copies. Our apologies and regrets.

Thanks.

Jim Campbell

ACT-UP/SF
Storms GOP

F ifteen members of ACT-UP/San
Francisco stormed the San Francisco
office of the Republican Party, trash¬
ing the offices and demanding the immedi¬
ate reauthorization of funding for a nation¬
al AIDS Commissioner.

ACT-UP hung Jessie Helms in effigy (too
bad he wasn’t around to do it in person),
painted blood-red hand prints on the walls,
and poured red paint into expensive com¬
puter equipment. A member of ACT-UP
who particapted in the action was quoted
as saying: “At first [the staff) thought it
was going to be a brief, comical action and
didn’t call the poIice...until they saw that
the paint was not water-soluble.”

Another member of ACT-UP summed up
the action this way: “It is the moral and
ethical duty of San Francisco to set the
tone for the left.” ★

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EZLN Consultation

(Continued from page 15)

written in another form, but we need to
know the answers to these questions. We
think that not only for us, but for all the
democratic forces, it would be good to
know the answers to these questions.

The first of these questions refers to the
need for a new social pact based on 13
points: housing, land, work, food, health,
education, independence, culture, informa¬
tion, democracy, liberty, justice and peace. If
these 13 demands are the principal ones for
the majority of the Mexican people, then the
economic direction of the country should be
redefined, and have as a fundamental objec¬
tive the satisfaction of these needs.

The second question refers to the need to
unite the oppositional forces in a common
program of struggle. We have already writ¬
ten what we think about this, but what do
the people of Mexico think?

The third is about the need for one of the
necessary and justified conditions in the
peaceful political struggle. The lack of con¬
ditions for a political struggle obliges citi¬
zens to take up the clandestine and illegal
struggle, or skepticism and apathy. The
electoral struggle is not the whole of the
political struggle. Electoral reform does not
signify political reform.

This last thing signifies the destruction
of the system of the party-State, a revolu¬
tion and not a reform. But a fair and free
electoral system is necessary for the transi¬
tion to democracy.

The fourth and fifth questions are mutu¬
ally exclusive. To say no to both means
that one is saying “no** to the question of
whether the EZLN should make itself a
political force. If the answer is “yes’*, then
one still has to ask whether it should be
done alone, which is to say, as a new and
independent political force; or should it
unite with other forces in Mexico, and
together, form a new political force. We are
not asking if we should incorporate our¬
selves into one of the existing political
forces. On the one hand, for this to occur,
one would suppose that we would have to
take on the appearance of the organization
that we plan to incorporate ourselves into.
On the other hand, we are following this
road precisely because we do not feel rep¬
resented by any of the existing ones.

Perhaps questions four and five are the
ones about which there are the most
doubts. We will try to continue trying to
clarify them by various means. For now, I
only want to say that we are not asking if
we should disarm or not. We have been
clear that laying down our weapons is not
open for discussion. Nor are we asking if
we should become a political party, as the
“party** is only one of the many forms that
a political force can take.

Until now the EZLN has only called for
organizing and struggle for democracy, lib¬
erty and justice. But as it is clandestine and
armed, the EZLN has not organized. We are
not a political force.

We arc a moral force or a catalyst of
new organizing forms, but our force is not
organized politically. Our opinion is lis¬
tened to by many people, and perhaps, fol¬
lowed. But it is not translated into organi¬
zation. Perhaps our role is only to point out
the scarcities and open a space for discus¬
sion and new participation. Perhaps that is
all our historic role is to be.

Or perhaps, the time has arrived for the
Zapatista word not only to move people or
create consciousness; perhaps, the time has
arrived for the word “organizing** to be
Zapatista as well. This is what we are asking.

There could have been more questions
about other themes, this form of national
dialogue is not exclusive.

Fifth. It is also about a proposal for par¬
ticipation, From a consultation that is not
limited to “yes** or “no** for one or more of
the questions, but rather involves broad
sectors of citizens in its organization and
implementation.

Sixth. It is a call to unity in two ways: to
organize and to struggle.

Seventh. It is setting a precedent: an
organization consults the citizenry about
its next steps and future actions.

Eighth. It is about having criteria, the
broadest possible, for making a decision
that could be definitive for us. If the gov¬
ernment’s position in the dialogue improves
and a just and dignified agreement is
reached, the problem for the EZLN will
continue: What should be done? Continue
struggling through other means?
Disappear?

Ninth. It is not a propaganda action. It is
a referendum about our demands (the 13
points), about our call for the opposition to
unite (a broad oppositional front), about
our principal political demand (profound
political reform). It is a crucial question:
What are we going to do? How are we
going to do it? Should we become a politi¬
cal force? Alone or with others?

Tenth. The dates are flexible, but it should
be taken into account that we need to know
the answers in order to guide our process in
the dialogue with the government.

Well these are some answers...that bring
us to new questions.

But now I want to explain to you...

PROPOSAL FOR ORGANIZING THE
NATIONAL PLEBISCITE

FIRST. The work of promoting the consulta¬
tion and that of organizing it should be sep¬
arated. This is because we need for the con¬
sultation to be conducted with impartiality,
autonomy, objectivity and credibility. The
brothers and sisters of Civic Alliance have
earned respect in Mexico and outside of the
country for its seriousness, professionalism
and neutrality. Its commitment to a new
peace and a transition to democracy is
beyond a doubt. They have the experience
and the infrastructure. In the end, they have
the technique, the methodology and the
moral authority to give a national consulta¬

tion credibility. For this reason we are ask¬
ing that the National Civic Alliance be the
one that makes up the National Organizing
Commission for the Consultation.

This means that the Civic Alliance would
be in charge of, with full autonomy and inde¬
pendence, the organization of the consulta¬
tion. The “organizational chart** and form of
working in the states and municipalities of
the Republic will be determined by the
National Civic Alliance based on their criteria.

SECOND. Nevertheless, the EZLN con¬
ceived of this consultation not as a simple
exchange of questions and answers. We
think that the consultation should be part of
a great national dialogue that looks for new
forms for conducting it and coming to con¬
crete results. The consultation is part of the
process of initiatives for meeting, holding a
dialogue and coming to agreement among
different forces and citizens. It is part of the
effort of the National Democratic
Convention, of the Dialogue of the Civil
Society, of the citizens movement, of all the
initiatives of the civic society who struggle
for democracy, liberty and justice.

The EZLN recognizes the National
Democratic Convention as an organizing
force of the civic and peaceful struggle for
democracy, liberty and justice. The spirit

that made it possible for thousands of
Mexicans to travel from all of the states of
the Republic to Chiapas and for the forma¬
tion of the CND in August 1995, has here a
new opportunity to show that we have the
maturity to organize ourselves.

For this reason we are asking the
National Democratic Convention to make
up the National Promotional Commission
of the Consultation. This means that the
CND would be in charge of, in agreement
with its structure and methods of work, the
promotion of the consultation, of its distri¬
bution, propaganda, and the explanation of
the goals and nature of the consultation.

This National Promotional Commission
of the Consultation would be made up of
representatives of the State Conventions
and that of the Federal District, and those
of the Sectoral Conventions (women, stu¬
dents, workers, indigenous, campesinos and
cultural workers).

It would have a Directing Committee
made up of 10 members of the National
Council of Representatives of the CND as
proposed by the EZLN and representatives
of the EZLN.

The organizing form of the CND for this
work of the consultation would be the fol¬
lowing:

a) The National Promotional
Commission of the Consultation
would be made up of two representa¬
tives from each one of the State
Conventions and that of the Federal
District, and two from each one of the
Sectoral Conventions.

b) The Directing Committee would be
made up of 10 members of the CND
proposed by the EZLN and represent¬
ing the different currents within the
CND. Five of the ten will make up the
General Council of the National
Consultation.

c) The EZLN will make the corre¬
sponding convocation and will estab¬
lish the protocol for installing, carry¬
ing out and evaluating the said
National Consultation.

d) In each state in the Republic and in
the Federal District a Promotional
State Commission will be established,
organized in accordance with the
National Promotional Commission.

e) The State Conventions and that of
the Federal District will make the cor¬
responding convocation and will
establish the protocol for installing,
carrying out and evaluating the State

Commissions.

f) In each municipality of the country a
Promotional Commission will be estab¬
lished, following the form of the State
Commissions. The State Commissions
and that of the Federal District will be
responsible for this activity.

g) The Sectoral Conventions will also
work according to the territory where
they have representation, with the
goal of broadening the consultations
and representation.

h) At all times there will be a commit¬
ment to maintaining a tight coordina¬
tion among all the levels and a con¬
stant and timely flow of information.

THIRD. It is necessary to remember that
this is a consultation of the EZLN. It is not
a consultation of the CND or of the
Alliance or of a political party or a busi¬
ness. For this reason we ask that the EZLN
participate in the planning and the orga¬
nizing of the consultation.

FOURTH. It is an effort, then, to estab¬
lish a relation among these three parts: the
one who asked for the consultation (the

EZLN), the one who is promoting and dis¬
tributing it (the CND) and the one who is
organizing it (the Civic Alliance). For this
reason we are proposing to the National
Democratic Convention and the National
Civic Alliance that a General Council of
the National Consultation be formed that is
responsible in tying together the National
Organizing Commission, the National
Promotional Commission and the EZLN.
This General Council of the National
Consultation would be made up of five
representatives of the CND as proposed by
the EZLN, five from the National Civic
Alliance, and one from the EZLN, and its
work would be to follow through with the
works of the consultation and to settle any
differences that could develop.

FIFTH. All that is involved with the
International Consultation will be the result
of, in organization and promotion, an
International Coordinating Commission
made up of 10 Convention members pro¬
posed by the EZLN. That is to say that the
organization of the International
Consultation is the responsibility of the CND.

CHRONOLOGY OF.ACTIVITIES

We proposed the following calendar. I
repeat that it is not definitive and could be
adjusted:

a) June. Convocation, preparation
meetings, installation of the National
Organizing Commission and the State
Organizing Commissions.

b) July, Distribution and organization
of the National Consultation.
Implementation of the International
Consultation.

c) August. Carrying out of the
Consultation, results and evaluation

I believe that is all for now, I am sure
true to what Old Man Antonio teaches, this
will bring more questions. I hope that we
will answer them together.

Lastly, some words regarding the possi¬
bility that you reject this invitation. We do
not ignore that you, like us, have your
mechanisms for making decisions. Nor has
it escaped our attention that your partici¬
pation, if you decided to do so, could bring
you unjust accusations and calumnies.
Whatever is your response we will accept it
and respect it. I only tried to explain to
you why it is worthwhile to participate. I
am sure that there will be reasons, and that
they are neither few in number nor less
forceful in reason, for not participating.
Regardless, value this as a greeting and a

Vale. Health. And hopes that the stories
that are worthwhile, or in other words
those that cause one to wake up, be many.

From the mountains of Southeastern
Mexico

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Mexico June 1995

P.S. I am sending a copy of this letter to
the National Democratic Convention along
with our proposal for the Convention mem¬
bers who would make up the General
Council and Directing Promotional
Committee.

P.S. Durito asks if beetles are included in
the consultation.

For now he is announcing a solemn
piano recital in four hands in order to pro¬
mote it. The menu will include Bola De
Nieve and a global premiere of the work
“The Ballerina and The Beetle” whose
author (did anyone have a doubt) is Durito!
I reminded him of the military blockade
and he decided that was good because it
would avoid re-sale. ★

small recognition of your work..and of
your history.

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1995 • LOVE AND RACE • PAGE 23

unesp"^ Cedap

Centro de Documenta^ao e Apoio a Pesquisa

Faculdade de Clenclas e Letras de Assis

NO"Choice

(Continued from 3)

identified three of the original eight signers
of Paul Hill’s Defensive Action List (the sig¬
nature campaign justifying the assassination
of abortion providers) in leadership and high
level support. OR has forever denied connec¬
tions to the hit list and to clinic violence, but
among the dirty truths about OR’s violent
history is that their leader, Joe Forman, one
of those arrested in the following day’s hit
and a main speaker at their LA church rallies,
was among the original signers. Forman, like
many other OR leaders, is active in the US
Taxpayers Party, a far-right party that is
central in the Militia movement.

In Riverside, the Fund had pro-choice
people hold signs and chant in front of the
clinic and in half of the parking lot—leav¬
ing the other half of the parking lot for OR
to hold their media event unchallenged-
getting on their knees in front of the clinic
where clients and workers were coming and
going. We Jumped with our signs, blocking
cameras from taking pictures of women
going into the clinic, and we held cartoon-
looking thought bubbles over the heads of
*0R thugs, saying things like, “I love clinic

bombings,” “I’m having a butyric acid
flashback,” and “Fetus shmetus, when do I
get to hit the girl?” We challenged OR’s
“peaceful” image with basic facts about
their members and their history. The anti’s
had a much harder time pulling off their
plans. Many pro-choice women who had
come with the Fund joined us, asked to
hold signs that were a little sharper than
“keep abortion legal”—and used their voices
to challenge the assaulters. The Fund lead¬
ership was clearly as agitated by the
stepped-up pro-choice response as they
were by the anti’s.

Saturday, the day of the hit, hundreds of
pro-choicers were at the clinics around LA.
Many had followed the OR caravan from its
church meeting-point earlier in the morn¬
ing. The Fund’s “official leaders” made it
clear from the get go that they would offer
no resistance to OR if they rushed the door,
and were depending on the police to move
the anti’s away and level federal charges.

In a nutshell, the anti’s were permitted to
sit down in front of the doors, creating the
image of non-violent anti-abortion protest.
They kept the clinic shut down for two
hours. The Fund’s main office lied to
BACORR and to Palm Springs NOW, who
they knew was working with BACORR,
about OR’s whereabouts-telling us they
had lost the caravan and had no idea where
it was. Our last communication was around
9:00 a.m. According to all reports, OR hit
the North Hollywood clinic around 8:30
a.m. A local reporter told us that she had
interviewed pro-choice people who were
standing at the door when the hit went
down who were told not to stop the anti’s
and to move away from the door.

When we arrived the entire block had

been cordoned off by police. Hundreds of
pro-choice people were being organized
into a picket line, holding signs and walk¬
ing in a circle. The Fund led the applause
for the LAPD as the anti’s were slowly and
gently led away. Anti leaders were in the
street holding forth to the press about how
loving and godly protesters shouldn’t be
charged with federal crimes-and self-right¬
eous bible and bead-rubbing phalanxes
were posing for the media.

Preventing OR from achieving a victory
in the media proved difficult because Fund
monitors tried to stop us from chanting
“What About Boston” and finger pointing
at the real criminals. A Fund marshal
yelled at us to leave the anti’s alone, and a
Fund woman came over yelling that we
were creating a “bad photo op.” We con¬
sider a bad photo-op to be pictures of
“peaceful Christians” on their knees-the
false image of the anti-abortion movement
as (1) non-violent (2) about loving for chil¬
dren (3) as protest expressed in a loving
and prayerful manner.

Not terribly surprising, the police soon
moved in to separate the “two sides” by
turning their backs to*the anti’s and shov¬
ing pro-choicers with their clubs. The Fund
told the police that we (those who weren’t
letting the anti’s get off unchallenged) had
nothing to do with the official pro-choice

response, essentially giving the police
license to move in on us. As the cops
shoved and jabbed us with sticks I loudly
pointed out the sham-OR had planned
months ahead of time to violate federal
law, organizing nation-wide (isn’t that a
conspiracy?) while the police obviously
negotiated to let them. Some of the most
notorious anti’s were leading the crusade of
terrorism against the doctors and women—
but who gets clubbed?

CAN YOU SAY "DYKE-BASHING"?

I started the tired but accurate chant “OR,
Cops and Klan work together hand in
hand” and a cop grabbed me by the neck
and another group of cops grabbed Lilly,
who was protecting my injured arm. The
cops threw Lilly on the ground, one cop
dropped his full weight on her chest with
his knee and threw her on her belly,
smashing her chin into the asphalt, stomp¬
ing his boot on her shoulder blade.

While my dislocated shoulder was being
reinjured. Officer Hillman was letting me
know my rights: “You Stupid Fuck,” he kept
repeating, “You idiot, you’re going to learn
from this you stupid ^ck.” -Hillman is well
known by ACT-UP LA as he has consistently
targeted their members. That explains why
we were asked repeatedly if we were from
ACT-UP while in jail-despite the fact that
we both were wearing BACORR t-shirts.
Hillman had targeted the group repeatedly,
and we obviously fit the profile of the “mili¬
tant homosexual” in his homophobic pea-
head. Can you say “dyke bashing”?

While the arrests were taking place cops
on horseback moved in and ran all the pro-
choice folks out of the area, forcing pro-

choicers across the street and down the
block, while leaving the anti’s to continue
their media circus in the street and in front
of the clinic. One BACORR person reported
that the police gently lifted up an anti
woman who was praying on her knees and
gently moving her to a safer area.

The scene was much the same in jail. The
anti’s were sitting on chairs in the shade
outside. All had plastic cuffs on so that they
could have a good 8-10 inches between
their wrists to comfortably make room for
their ample girth. Lilly and I, both injured
and in metal cuffs, were chained to a bench
inside with our faces to the wall and our
backs to the police while Jeff White, OR
California spokesman and leader, was
strolled through. “It’ll be just a few moments
Mr. White, we’ll have you out of here in no
time. Just come this way and we’ll take your
cuffs off and you can sit in the lobby,”

The level of politeness and concern for
the anti’s by the LAPD was moving. The
police conversed among themselves about
how all of White’s family was in law
enforcement. Brian Kemper, an OR white
supremacist with nazi-skin tattoos, was
patted on the shoulder by one cop walking
by, “Don’t worry bro, we’ll have you out of
here real soon.”

WHEN IS ENOUGH ENOUGH?

We were charged with “failure to disperse”—
the same charges leveled against OR. The
Fund never bothered to follow up to find
out our actual charges. They told the press
and at least one person who called their
office that we were arrested for assaulting
an officer and resisting arrest, and suggest¬
ed that we got what we deserved. The
National Lawyers Guild had provided legal
observers for a number of sites, but the
Fund didn’t bother to inform them that two

Anarcho-Pantherista

(Continued from 5)

Revolution is learning how to bring a
large variety of personalities together into a
powerful harmony. This harmony must lay
down some general direction and get work
done. It’s never easy. It’s struggle. It takes a
lot of skill. The BP Collective was gonna
learn this. We started off without a formal
structure. We just called it and got it
together. The Old Guard of BPNC too
already had responsibilities to put out the
newspaper and work to raise consciousness
of our comrades who are STILL political
prisoners. An informal structure, more or
less leaderless, developed around this work
with the BPNC encouraging others to join
in. And they did!

The initial crew was baaad! Yeah. Sold
the Black Panther like they owned it, and
with spirit. Wasn’t afraid to talk with peo¬
ple and engage them. Or challenge them for
that matter. “Well, why don’t you wanna
buy the paper? It’s for you, Sista. Don’t be
afraid, Brotha. Don’t wait for them to kick
down your door...” Mm-m. Panther spirit.

So much work to be done. “There’s a
Political Prisoner meeting on blah-blah, at
7:00 PM. Those of you who are interested
in working...” That’s all. They were there.
You should see them now with the FREE
MUMIA work! We worked so much that we
never got around to structure or structuring
our activities and decision and direction¬
making processes. It was gonna cost us,
and it did. But it had to happen.

Revolution, after defeat and years gone
by, is as much psychological as it is formal¬
ly political. Panthers, automatic members of
the BPNC, came together after years in the
absence of the intense, disciplined struggle
that we once knew. We been through
changes. We were still trying to gel our dif¬
ferent personalities. But now it’s structure
time. The Collective is calling for leadership.
It is time for the essential struggle to begin:
one for clarity, uniformity of will, formal
organization of BPC with ideology, a chain
of command and rules. Oh god!

In the Collective, everyone is encouraged
to speak one’s mind. In the BPP, we practiced
Mao’s Combat Liberalism as best we could. It
is still a good thing and not a bad thing. As
an anarchist now, with other groundings in
psychology and Feminism. I offer, when
appropriate, my 2 cents on matters of struc¬
ture, taking initiative to do things on one’s
own, and against sexism. A big part of the
difficulty I have working my 2 cents is that
People raised on hierarchy, authoritarian
beliefs truly see such as natural. There’s
always gotta be leadership. I say why? Who
says? What kind? Why assume that there’s
only one form of organizational structure?

pro-choice people had been arrested, or
enlist their assistance in any way.

Of course the media reported that “both
sides” declared a victory. The Fund
declared that all the clients had gotten
into the clinic, but for all clients to have
gotten in, the clinic must have known
about the hit ahead of time and told
clients to arrive and get inside before
8:30 a.m. Frankly letting OR shut down a
clinic, take arrests, and create a “non-vio¬
lent” image of their movement is a victo¬
ry for OR, not for women, not for
providers, and not for people fighting
right-wing repression. This didn’t need to
happen, there were certainly enough peo¬
ple ready to keep the clinic open who
could have done so.

Stopping shut-downs and assaults on
our clinics is necessary but not sufficient
means for stopping the aggression of the
Christian Right. The actions of the Fund,
and BACORR’s criticisms of those actions,
highlight two different strategies of how to
contend with anti-abortion assaults on our
clinics. The difference is not merely one of
image, but spells the difference between a
small middle class movement that puts its
hope in the police and the government to
protect our rights, and one that builds peo¬
ple’s ability to keep our clinics open and
fight the Christian Right.

Our charges were dropped a few days
before our arraignment in mid-June. To
date, OR has not been served with federal
charges, and it doesn’t look like they will
be. This means that OR will be on the road
again as soon as they get out of their cur¬
rent legal entanglements, taking their cart
and pony show to the next town in the
hopes of more PR, more intimidations, and
a Supreme Court case. Lesson learned?
Next time, let’s stop them before they get
near the clinic door. ★

And what does it mean when our structure
resembles the enemy’s? As a member of this
Collective body, I accept its general direction
even if I am the minority member in my
views. Because it is democratic enough to
allow input, I can still raise my views, as can
anyone. Oh yeah, I get frustrated and angry.
But that’s normal stuff in any grouping. I
think that the BPC who are young-in-experi-
ence understand at this point that frustration
and anger are part of the process. As we’d
say in the Party, “It’s a good thing not a bad
thing.” It’s the only way we can pull a
diverse group of people together. As one
BPNC member said in referring to the
Collective, “They are a bunch of crazy-ass
muthafuckas,” the kind of good human
beings who make Revolution.

It’s hard to feel comfortable if you truly
believe that you see internal dangers in your
group, I am one person. I guess I believe like
anybody else that my critique is on-point,
that my warning-signs should be heeded. But
this is a body of people and though it may
not be anarchist, it’s democratic enough for
me to feel that my 2 cents is valued.

My collective knows that I raise my
voice against sexism, I talk revolutionary
sexuality and lay out condoms on meeting
tables. I’m always bringing reading materi¬
al because I believe we must be encouraged
to read, read, read. But I don’t want to just
get stuck off into Marxist stuff—”Lir Red
Book,” etc. No matter how valuable they
are. I’ve shared Lorenzo Komboa Ervin’s
(Black anarchist, former Black Panther, and
now member of the Federation of Black
Community Partisans) writings with them.
Exposure to diverse views and critiques is
what is needed. I am one of these diverse
“elders,” as they call us of BPNC. As the
@narcho-pantherista I can only be me and
give my best and hope that others see that
my main concern is Revolution, ALL Power
to the People, and victoiy over all our ene¬
mies, from people who oppose freedom to
mind-sets that continue to hold on to anti¬
freedom, anti-revolutionaiy ideas.

The BPC is a spirited group of hard-ass
revolutionaries. Already, on their own, tired
of waiting for us (the leadership), they put a
food program into motion on 116th St. and
Adam Clayton Powell Blvd. in Harlem, the
capital of this “captive nation” (I’m a revolu-
tionaiy intercommunalist personally, to add
fuel to the fire). I say Right On! It’s about
initiative and I like theirs. The People are
their own leaders, their own Liberators. I see
myself as participant-facilitator. @narcho-
pantherista, the highest stage of pantherism.

ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

Ashanti Omowali

BPNC/BPC

BPNC

P.O.Box 16330

Jersey City, NJ 07306 201-432-0874

V

PAGE 24 • LOVE AND RAGE • AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1995

unesp"^ Cedap

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Faculdade de Clencias e Letras de Assis

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Review of Settlers

(Continued from page 5)

a total of 16%. This goes on to show that
35% of all households had a net worth of
less than $5,000. Is this affluence?

It certainly looks like a good case for
classic class struggle, with the evidence that
Lundberg gives us. Sakai warns us, howev-
er, “most typically, the revisionist lumps
together the US oppressor nation with the
various Third World oppressed nations and
national minorities as one society.”

In this light, the figures check out. New
African income, which today averages 56%
of white income and stood at about the
same or less in 1953, makes up a dispropor¬
tion of the deficit, zero, under-a-thousand
and under-five-thousand dollar consumer
units. Definitely more than 10% of them,
which was our percentage of the popula¬
tion. If we could make a sensible judgment,
we’d have to say that the combined captive
nations: New African, Mexicano, Puerto
Rican and Native, or about one sixth of the
population as of 1981 all make up a dispro¬
portionate amount of the consumer units
with deficits, and below $5,000. This forms
a cushion for the white population.

Sakai points out that, “the medium Euro-
American family income in 1981 was
$23,517, and “that between 1960 and 1979
the percentage of settler families earning
over $25,000 per year (in constant 1979
dollars) doubled, making up 40% of the
settler population.” We may have had a
general idea from neighborhood walks, but
Sakai gives us an idea of the extent.

This extent, and the “conspicuous concen¬
tration of state services—parks, garbage col¬
lections, swimming pools, better schools,
medical facilities and so on” and the fact that
“to the settlers’ garrison goes the first pick of
whatever is available—homes, jobs, schools,
food, health care, governmental services and
so on.” Not to mention racism within settlers,
puts to rest an idea of a multi-racial class
struggle that includes whites.

“Nation is the dominant factor, modify¬
ing class relations.” Lundberg who over¬
looked the national factor in the economic
tables he based his argument on, notes that
“in the rare cases where policy is uppermost
in the mind of the electorate it is usually a
destructive policy, as toward Negroes in the
South and elsewhere. Policies promising to
be injurious to minority groups such as
Negroes, Catholics, foreigners, Jews,
Mexicans, Chinese, intellectuals and in fact,
all deviants from fixed philistinish norms,
usually attract a larger-than-usual support¬
ing vote,” or mandate if you will.

“Approximately 10% of the European-
American population has been living in
poverty by government statistics. This
minority is not a cohesive, proletarian stra¬
tum, but a miscellaneous fringe of the
unlucky and the outcast: older workers
trapped by fading industries, retired poor,
physically and emotionally disabled, and
such families supported by single women.”

How many of this group of whites will
side with the revolution, how many whites
will come to view their interests with the

long-term interest of those of us who prefer
to live on a living planet, and how many
will fail to equate their quality of life with
50,000,000,000 hamburgers is anyone’s
guess. However, it’s a small wonder why
white anti-imperialists have been giving
me blank stares whenever I’ve mentioned
class struggle to them.

The left in this country is very small, by
whatever way you might want to look at it.
If you define left as those of us who stand
for a decentralization of wealth and
power—taking the question is completely
out of the realm of bourgeois civil rights
and rightfully includes the independence of
captured nations, which is part and parcel
of the decentralization of wealth and
power—the left is microscopic.

We are left with ourselves. Left in homes
that police drop bombs on from helicopters,
and without any shared sense of outrage.
We are left where murders by police and
other racists are commonplace and for the
most part celebrated. Left in the ghettos,
barrios, and other reservations.

Let’s not forget that New Africa has a
class problem. That not only do police, but
politicians, poverty hustlers and representa¬
tives from the established Black publishers
and churches, move up in the world when
they join the ranks of the oppressors. The
oppressors never have a problem finding
Black leaders to condemn their blatant disre¬
gard for life, like that which took place in
Philly [when police bombed a home with
eleven Black people, including four chil¬
dren]. We only have established leaders to
draw us into the ranks of a Democratic Party
without being able to introduce as much as
one Black plank into a white platform.
Leaders who beget other leaders like Mayor
Goode [a Black mayor who was thought of
as being a victory for Black people].

Where I differ with Sakai is the assertion
that “building mass institutions and move¬
ments of a specific national character
under the leadership of a communist party
are absolute necessities for the oppressed.”
What communist party is he talking about?
I feel that we must build revolutionary
institutions that buttress on survival
through collectives, which in turn should
form federations. Grassroots collective
building can begin immediately.

In an epoch where New African nation¬
alists and Marxists have voluntarily taken
the defensive, without even a fraction of a
blueprint of a party or consistent practices
in the colony, it’s incredible that people
outside the ranks and currents of those who
believe in magic words aren’t encouraged
to collectively take matters in their own
hands, to build the collective institutions
and superstructure of a superseding society.
We must begin where we are, with each
other and the time we don’t waste.

I think that the building of revolutionary
collectives and forming of federations of
collectives is the most practical and right¬
eously rewarding process of preserving and
enhancing life and developing the charac¬
ter of all nations. We can change ourselves
and the world.^

Consultation Extended

I n a report entitled “San Andres V- A
’New’ Solidarity,” Cecilia Rodriguez,
Coordinator of the National Center for
Democracy, Justice and Liberty, announced
that the International Consulta timeline has
been extended:

The International Commission of the
CND has authorized three stages for the
international plebiscite to correspond with
national events. Participation in the
International Plebiscite is open to all peo¬
ples of the world. Please plan other events
and gather as many ballots as possible.

JULY 31-Deadline for the completion
of the first stage

AUGUST 20-Completion of the sec¬
ond stage to coincide with the
National Plebiscite

SEPTEMBER 13-Completion of the
third stage to coincide with the
National Student Plebiscite

In the report Cecilia also had 4 other rec¬
ommendations for supporting the struggle
for a new peace in Mexico:

1. Send a substantial contribution to the
Mexican Commission for the National
Plebiscite. The commission must raise
$100,000 in order to make the plebiscite
happen.

Contributions should be sent to the

Banco Inverlat SA (branch #038], account
# 910695-2, in the name of Esperanza
Ayar Macias.

2. Support the humanitarian aid caravan
being organized by Pastors for Peace due to
arrive in Chiapas on August 27th. For more
information, please call Pastors for Peace at
(612) 378-0062 or <p4p@igc.apc.org> for
specific information. The campesinos have
been severely impacted, by the militarization
of southern Mexico. Unless there is a signifi¬
cant increase in humanitarian aid, the wide¬
spread hunger and illness which already
grips the area will intensify. Will we allow
hunger to be the only compensation for a
people who dared to stand for their dignity?

3. Participate in the International Plebiscite
by personally filling out a ballot. Take a
bunch of ballots to your union, school, health
club, church. Talk to people and explain the
importance of their participation.

4. Participate in the peace camps located in
many of the villages which have been mili¬
tarized. Your presence and hard work in
these communities provide enormous moral
support, and serve as a deterrent to contin¬
ued military harassment and intimidation.

For more information about “new” soli¬
darity contact the Center for Democracy,
Liberty and Justice at (915) 532-8382 or
email at <moonlight@igc.apc.org>. ★

Other Revolutionary Periodicals

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AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1995 • LOVE AND RAGE • PAGE 25

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20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28

Editorial

Smoke gets in our eyes...

Dust from a civil war within whiteness
blinds us to genocide-as-usual words

BY Burn One and Nikolas Kautz, Minneapolis
BRANCH^ prison-abolition WORKING GROUP

T he Love and Rage Federation denies the
US government the “right” to execute
anyone convicted of any crime, no mat¬
ter how heinous. Obviously, we fight to keep
the government from murdering friends of the
people, or innocent people, like Mumia Abu-
Jamal. But we also want to make it clear that
the US has no moral authority to execute the
white nazis who blew up the Oklahoma City
federal building, killing a handful of cops, a
lot of hapless government workers, and a slew
of innocent children. A lot of the workers and
kids were people of color.

When the government and white-power
thugs go at each other, it’s tempting to say,
Just forget about us, fellas. Do what you
gotta do to each other. But silent neutrality
stifles our real politics.

The Minneapolis members of the Prison-
Abolition Working Group of the federation
believe that abolishing whiteness is an
important part of our future vision.

Whether we’re calling local prisoncrats
on the phone to protest on behalf of a pris¬
oner, publicizing the case of the Minnesota
8, or, as of this writing, doing emergency
work to stop the execution of Mumia on
Aug. 17, we’re doing it in part with this in
mind: To articulate a critique not merely of
“racism” but of whiteness.

We’re not hoping to make prison better so

that prisoners like it in there, we’re seeking
to build a prison abolition movement with
an anti-genocide focus. We see a future
where anti-social activities now known as
domestic violence, black-on-black violence,
people-on-people violence are way down
because people’s sense of personal responsi¬
bility and responsibility to their community
is way up. In order for that to happen, all the
institutions of whiteness in Nor^ America
will have to be seriously weakened, on the
defensive, and eventually destroyed.

What does this have to do with white-
power dolts, shit bombs, and the government?
Just this: We have to see through the smoke,
see that the bombers and the system they’re
bombing are flip sides of the same white coin.
Both must be fought. And neither side has any
moral or political credibility to fight the other.

Timothy McVeigh, the bonehead bomber,
calls himself a “prisoner of war.” On the
one hand, this is an intolerable insult
against the imprisoned soldiers of the real
liberation struggles of the colonized peoples
within the US empire. On the other hand, he
is a POW of a civil war within whiteness. If
you doubt that the “Aryan” purists and the
pro-status-quo whites are mortal enemies,
you’ve missed a few shoot-outs lately.

We know what the Aryans, Christian
Identity-ites, and boi)eheads want. We’ve read
their books and listened to their musik and
speeches. And we know from experience what
lynchings, gas ovens, and mass graves look
like. We don’t want any part of that noise
again, but don’t forget this: The status-quo
whites don’t really want it, either. We may

call ourselves race traitors with pride, but the
nazis also call Bob Dole a race traitor. And he
loves it. It makes his racism seem mainstream.
The type of genocide the Republicans and
Democrats cany out because the whites who
vote for them approve it is different from the
“Aiyan Bastion” in this regard: its purpose is
sustain whites in privilege forever, not to wipe
people out in a new “final solution.” The pro¬
status-quo whites don’t want their prisons to
look like death camps, or their suburbs to look
like settlements in the Occupied Territories.
They just want their MTV.

If we let the whites punish McVeigh, we
let them think that their society is kinder ft
gentler than a nazi’s wet dream. Wrong,
white America, we have to say, you created
McVeigh, you alienated him, he bit off your
face, and now you don’t get to feel good
about punishing him.

And any “whites” who understand this
logic should feel free to start acting like
race traitors.

The genocide-as-usual of the status-quo
whites was Just intensified : Congress rushed
through the Comprehensive Terrorist Act
(CTA) as the dust cloud from Oklahoma City
was still in everyone’s eyes. An amendment to
the law cuts off death penalty appeals a year
after your conviction. Under this law, Mumia
Abu-Jamal would have been dead by 1983.

The McVeighs of the world are hardly the
target of this law. Specific members of a
“lost generation” of young Black men are
the ones going down. This is a tightening of
the noose in the fabricated drug war that
the state and the white, suburban drug lords

are waging in poor Black, Latino/a, and
Native American communities. This is
heaped on top of the already-existing race
disparity of death row prisoners: 40% of
death row is Black, but African Americans
make up 12% of the US population.

And, as usual, colonized people of color
around the globe will also feel the terror. The
organizations that liberation movement create
will get put on the new, improved “terrorist”
list that the CTA authorizes, and US solidarity
with them will be criminalized even further.

In this light we need to acknowledge with
a clenched-fist salute the African National
Congress’s recent act of solidarity with
Mumia: the ANC government that just abol¬
ished the death penalty has also condemned
the signing of Mumia’s death warrant popu¬
lar organizations have flooded the courts and
governor’s office with protests. The Black
majority of South Africa understood capital
punishment as a linchpin of the apartheid
system, and demanded its repeal.

None of us is going to divert any energy to
building a defense campaign for the bonehead
bomber, McVeigh. Your first meeting would
be mighty interesting: look around the room
and, oh, wasn’t that you who desecrated that
Jewish cemetery a few months back? But, as
we do our current work, we must make clear
that we deny the US government and the pro¬
status-quo whites any political use of their
boy McVeigh. We keep our “eyes on the
prize”: abolishing whiteness, building a just
and free society: and that means denying
both the fascists and the centrist ruling class
any moral authority to attack one another. ★

FREE THE LAND

5-21-95

Dear Love and Rage

Love and Rage, i hope you all are well.

i have just received my March/April ‘95
Love and Rage, As always, there is much in
it that has inspired serious thought and cri¬
tique of my own positions, i have been fas¬
cinated with the discussion between the
“White” wimmin on the Love and Rage
Production Group and Noel Ignatiev, i wish
to learn more about what wimmin feel is
sexism, i have a lot to learn, i do have to
say to Christopher Day, though, that i
assumed when Noel Ignatiev used the term
“strangers” in his response in relation to
whom White Supremacy protected White
wimmin from, that he was talking about
Black men.

What i am writing about, and to, however,
is Matthew Quest and his latest piece
“Lessons of the Bandung Conference.” Other
than how to do a back-door snipe at Black
Nationalist in the u.s. i fail to see the “les¬
son.” Unless, of course, the lesson is your bit¬
ter contempt for Black Nationalist
Referencing your previous piece,
“Afrocentricty vs. Homosexuality,” in which
you use “Afrocentrism” as if the term leaves
the taste of shit in your mouth, i must say
that i could not help but come away from
that article with the inescapable conclusion
that you, Mr. Quest, have a problem, a seri¬
ous problem, with Black people; not just the
problems We have, such as Our own cyst’ms
of patriarchy, homophobia, class distinctions,
etc., as a people and as formations. Black
Nationalist or otherwise. This in spite of the
focus of your ire having been, ostensibly, Dr.
Welsing and her book The Isis Papers, my
assessment is borne out by your latest piece.
Just a few questions, Mr. Quest:

Wouldn’t you agree that the Anarchist
Movement in general, and the Anarchist
“scene” in the u.s., in particular, for all its
universalistic pronouncements to the con¬
trary, is a “White thing?”

Or, rather, in relation to non-White
Anarchist, don’t Whites exist in a Anarchist
ghetto? That being the case. We have to
recognize that the Black people, politically
aware, or not, Anarchists and their forma¬
tions are more of the same thing; White
folk coming along telling Us what and how
we should think, speak, and act. And when
there is a Black person “out front” of these
White formations pushing that “White”
agenda on Black folk, that Black person
becomes what, Mr. Quest? A “Tom” or
“Aunt Jemima.” Correct, or not, the percep¬
tion is real and real in its consequences.

As a rule We have no reason to believe
that Whites have Our best interests at heart.
The natural tendency is to reject out of hand
Whites and “White things.” Let’s look at it
this way: If i know that a wummin has been
raped by most of the men she has come in
contact with i would be a fool not to expect
that she would harbor distrust and ill-will

toward me as a man UNTIL i have PROVEN
that i am different. That i mean her no harm.
Should anyone expect any less from Black
people? If they do, then they are fools of the
worst sort, or they think We are!

The responses of Black people to White
people are not the result of some irrational
pathology We have. We have just cause.
From the begining of Our clash with Whites
here in the amerikkkas the story has been
the same; no reason whatsoever for Us to
believe that We have some sort of “natural”
affinity and unity with White folk as the
Marxists would have Us believe with the
theory of the “working class” in amerikkka
having a common enemy. History and con¬
temporary reality demonstrate that the
“White working class” is the enemy; the
front line soldier of the White Supremacy
Power Cyst’m. The only distinction most
Black people can make between Whites
they don’t know personally is there are
Whites who rule and Whites who follow.
Rulers are rich. The other is poor. They are
both White and after, and doing the same
things. Mr. Quest, are these conditions
which We have created? If they are not,
then what responsibility do We have to
those who are responsible for those condi¬
tions? i submit the only responsibility We
have is to mash any sucka who is a part of
it We did not enslave Whites, nor are We
out to enslave Whites. Nor do We hate
Whites because they are White. Blacks who
do hate Whites can justly argue that White
people will make you hate them.

How do you explain, Mr. Quest, the
interest of young Black people in forma¬
tions such as the Nation of Islam? Black
youth are moving, in droves, toward groups
and ideologies that have a narrow nation¬
alistic agenda and perspective now more
than ever. Explain that Mr. Quest, i submit
that the increase in the appeal for Black
nationalism is directly proportional to the
level of overt hostilities towards Black peo¬
ple by the white proleteriat and the failure
of “integration.” i submit that with White
people becoming more openly racist and
fascist; with the Japanese deeming Us infe¬
rior and mass producing racist dolls carica¬
turing Us; with the Chinese beating the hell
out of the Afrikans and running them out
of China, and them running Us out of
China-towns here; with Koreans and Arabs
on the West and East Coasts, respectively,
assasinating Our daughters over bottles of
orange juice, and assasinating Our sons
over bags of cookies; and with most of Us
not giving a damn about some distinction
between a “Jew” and an East Texas in-bred
red-neck, the B’nai B’rith and the KKK, that
White people will make Black people hate
them and want to get away from them.
Black people are being pushed into nation¬
alistic positions!

In the face of these realities how do you
think you are going to build an Anarchist
reality and you would take from Black peo¬
ple the very thing which has caused Us to
survive— Nationalism? Unless, of course,
your idea is that We (Black people) should

assimilate and miscegenate Ourselves out
of existence. If that is the case, let Us be
the ones who assimilate others into Us.
Would that be okay? It is Black
Nationalism, not the philosophies and ide¬
ologies and the “goodness” of Whites, or
others, that has caused Black people to sur¬
vive. A nationalism imposed upon Us'first
by slavery, then by segregation, and now
by discrimination, adapted to Our peculiar
situation. It is not a hollow lament when
Black people state “When We had to stick
together We were better off.”

Mr. Quest, how do you propose to take
Black Nationalist and especially Black
Revolutionary Nationalist “to task”? And
how do you propose that you are going to
prevent Black Nationalist from articulating
and guiding the Black National
Independence Struggle in the manner in
which they see fit? Especially since you, Mr.
Quest are not a part of it and have so much
disdain for it? It is either the arrogance of
another “White thing” which leads you to
make such a statement or it is that and your
contempt for Black people. Do you propose
to take the Zapatistas* “to task” about how
they are articulating their struggle which has
to do, primarily, with their national ques¬
tions? Are you really planning and advising
that they should not articulate their strug¬
gle? Or are you threatening Black
Nationalist on the cool? Apologizing for
Black folk, or what, Mr. Quest?

i submit that you, Mr. Quest, and by
extension Love and Rage, have a problem
with Black Nationalism in the us! i would
also submit, in closing, that you, Mr. Quest,

and Anarchist in general—myself included—
are Nationalist! Politically speaking, the
“nation” is the social, political, and eco¬
nomic structures of a single people. Often,
but not necessarily, with access to a com¬
mon gene pool. The “nation” of people
share common experiences, perspectives
and values. This is different from the “state”
which is created to protect the interests of
the “nation.” By this definition. Anarchist
comprise a “nation.” A nation of people
who. in fact aspire to gain control of the
social, political, and economic structures of
Our lives. That is to say that under the defi¬
nition of “state” in the international law
(see, for instance, “The Montevido Treaty”
of Dec. 26, 1933, “Rights and Duties of
States.”) Anarchist are striving for “State
Power.” It can be argued that formations
such as Love and Rage have embarked upon
a “national liberation struggle” themselves—
using the current international law. By set¬
ting yourselves up against “nationalist ‘peo¬
ple of color’” you have come very close to
proclaiming yourselves enemies of people of
color by virtue of setting yourselves up in
competition with other national liberation
struggles, especially the one going on in
your own back yard!!! And you’re exhibit¬
ing the same type of intolerance, and abso¬
lutism, of any other non-revolutionary, nar¬
row nationalist formation.

Stiff Resistance!

Prince Imari A. Obadele
Anarchist Political Prisoner
Wynne Plantation #563888
Hunts[down niggahsjville, TX 77349

PAGE 26 • LOVE AND RACE • AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1995

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20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

MATTHEW QUEST RESPONDS

Mr. Obadde is irritated with me because I
have bluntly illustrated three obstacles to
Black nationalist politics being the path to
unity and autonomy of Black people.

The first obstacle is exclusion. Aspiring
Black political leaders frequently call for
unity in the community while ideologically
excluding some Black people as not being an
authentic part of it. Most consistently exclud¬
ed as not being “Black” enough to fight for
Black liberation are women and queers.

Molefi Asante, who coined the term
“Afrocentrism,” argues that “homosexuality
cannot be condoned or accepted as good
for the national development of a strong
people.” Asante believes, as does
Afrocentrist and homophobic author
Frances Cress Welsing, that Black homosex¬
ual expression is a product of “European
decadence.” Asante has a similar position to
Welsing regarding how Black gay males
can “redeem” themselves. “The time has
come for us to redeem our manhood
through planned Afrocentric action. All
brothers who are homosexual should know
that they too can become committed to the
collective will. It means the submergence of
their own wills into the collective will of
our people.” This translates to a reactionary
advocacy of abstinence and keeping queer
identity in the closet!

Similarly, Haki Madhubuti (formerly Don
L. Lee) explicitly argues in his book Black
Men: Obsolete, Single, Dangerous?, that
“male dominance is on the decline in the
Black community...which places the com¬
munity in jeopardy.” This can be seen as an
uncritical endorsement of male dominance
which grows out of essentialist notions
about race and gender. The implication is
that a powerful liberation movement, and
thus an enduring Black autonomy, can be
based only on straight Black men and
women who will fight white supremacy and
unify the community by playing different,
gender-specific roles.

According to Madhubuti, “biological and
sexual roles within the human species are
not interchangeable...The sexual deficien¬
cies and needs of men and women are,
indeed, different and correlate along bio¬
logical and cultural lines.” Thus, men and
women are locked into distinct, immutable,
naturally defined roles that we must adhere
to. Madhubuti mirrors in other comments
Welsing’s assertion that tl^e patriarchal ,
model of Black manhood is the key to Black

He implies that I believe Black people “have
some sort of‘natural’ affinity and unity
with white folk.” I do not. I don’t believe
Black folk have a “natural” affinity with
each other either.

The essential quality of grass-roots Black
nationalism in the US is the feeling on the
part of Black individuals that they are
responsible for the welfare of other Black
individuals, or of Black people as a collec¬
tive entity, because of a shared heritage of
racial oppression. This claim is of collective
identity, love for one’s people.

Mr. Obadele accuses me of wanting to
“take from Black people the very thing
which has caused Us to survive—

regarding melanin and climate (“ice peo¬
ple”; “sun people”), share the same fears as
Mr. Obadele and the KKK about miscegena¬
tion. Biological amalgamation of hue and
“integration” of culture through so called
“interracial relationships” do not predeter¬
mine people’s politics, although it makes,
such offspring highly unlikely to favor sep¬
aration of “the races.”

I am not opposed to the goal of Black
nationalism: unity and autonomy of Black
people. However, I am opposed to sepa¬
ratism as the program of a revolutionary
organization and the conservation of race
distinctions as the basis for revolutionary
politics. This is not grounded in any illu-

Love and Rage, are opposed to or in compe¬
tition with Black nationalism in the US and
by extension against Black people in gener¬
al. He also wishes to leave the impression
that any person of color, who is a member
of Love and Rage, who argues against sta-
tism or for the absolute freedom and digni¬
ty of Black women and queers within the
Black community is a “Tom.” Mr. Obadele
believes when Love and Rage advocates
such politics, it is part of a “white agenda.”

In conclusion, let me Just say this. Love
and Rage is a revolutionary organization.
Revolution is not the act of a leader or a
tiny party seizing power. It is a movement
of millions acting to change their lives for

Letters

empowerment. This is consistent with other
paternalistic insults to Black women’s
strengths and capabilities, at times border¬
ing on outright misogyny. Dissident voices
that challenge prevailing oppressive and
tired notions about gender roles and sexual
orientation have never been welcome in
most Black nationalist circles.

The second problem is political oppor¬
tunism and the goal of seizing state power.
While arguing for an “autonomous” Black
nation, many Black nationalist leaders are
doing everything in their power to ensure
that they’ll be at the top of that new
“autonomy.” Mr. Obadele has a most per¬
sonal stake in attacking me for my article
on the Bandung Conference, which con¬
cludes that national liberation struggles of
the past century, and their leadership, have
failed to recognize or deal with the perils of
striving for state power.

As a member of a “New Afrikan” provi¬
sional government in exile, Mr. Obadele
believes, after Black national independence
in the US, that the majority of Black folk
will consent to him and other self-appoint¬
ed leaders presiding over a separate Black
state composed of land which at this time is
part of the continental US. From Nkrumah
to Mandela, Lenin to Castro, no national
liberation struggle that achieved state
power succeeded in liberating the people.
Any autonomous Black nationalist politics
in the US that does not struggle over
resolving these questions is doomed to fail¬
ure. There is no need for apologies from
those of us who criticize the historically
failed ideology of liberation based on
oppressive social and political relations of a
different hue. The absolute freedom and
dignity of Black people is non-negotiable!

The third obstacle is racialism and its
partner, separatism. Mr. Obadele believes
Black folk as a rule have “natural tenden¬
cies,” “perceptions,” and “responsibilities.”

Nationalism.” But in doing this Mr. Obadele
collapses the distinction between national
identity as a historical and political sense of
unity, and Race nationalism as a predeter¬
mined historical destiny of “the race.” He
asserts that Black nationalism is a “natural”
reaction to the behavior of whites. At the
same time Mr. Obadele says it has been
“imposed” upon Blacks by whites but
“adapted to Our peculiar situation.”

Peculiar, indeed. How can political respons¬
es of human beings, which are presumably
a product of nature, be created, taken away,
or adapted by other human beings? How
can white supremacy be “adapted” by Black
folk to create new, autonomous, and sepa¬
rate social relations for a society just for
Black folk? This is where the shaky founda¬
tion of Mr. Obadele’s argument for race
separation, based on erroneous assumptions
not just about Black nationalism and Black
people, but on his conceptions of nature,
culture, and biology explodes.

Anyone could make the argument that
Black folk in the US have had such a com¬
mon cultural experience in reaction to
white supremacy that it almost seems that
such a reaction borders on a natural or bio¬
logical “racial” response. If this be true why
is it politically necessary to invoke the idea
of race at all? Allegiance. Not loyalty to
“the race,” but allegiance to a particular
political ideology or program.

Black folk in the US are not as Mr.
Obadele defines a “nation”: a “single peo¬
ple,” “sharing common experiences, per¬
spectives, and values,” “often, but not nec¬
essarily, with access to a common gene
pool.” Black folk have always been mem¬
bers of the same gene pool as eveiyone else,
the human race. Politics, like other perspec¬
tives and values, are not pre-determined by
genetics no matter what common cultural
experiences folks share! Welsing, Leonard
Jeffries, and others, with their theories

sions about Marxist theory or the potential
of the white working class to overcome their
racism. Rather my objection is to the idea
that the conservation of race distinctions
could be the basis of a new and free society.

Claiming one’s people does not imply an
inherent (biological) habit of mind, aesthet¬
ic sensibility, or political ideology or pro¬
gram. However, claiming a collective racial
destiny does allow aspiring Black national¬
ist leaders to impose their own beliefs that
all Black folk do already, or should, have
common perspectives or values. I am not
saying that Black folk should ignore the
real history and culture that is socially unit¬
ing. Rather, if the value of such is so obvi¬
ous in determining political action, it would
not be necessary to take any hostile psy¬
chological measures to conform folk to
such conclusions. Mr. Obadele does exactly
that by labeling anyone who disagrees with
him as a “fool,” “sucka,” “white,” “Aunt
Jemima,” “Uncle Tom,” or close to “an
enemy of Black people.”

Race, not merely the white race, is a his¬
torically constructed social reality despite
corresponding to no facts of natural sci¬
ence. It has been created and re-created,
like the concepts of nation and nationality,
as a political response to historical circum¬
stances by both Blacks and whites.

Treason to the white race is loyalty to
humanity because such treason subverts
white supremacy. However blind allegiance
to just anyone’s conception of the Black
race impedes Black autonomy by making
one susceptible to unilaterally decided and
undemocratic politics in the name of Black
liberation. A new Black autonomous poli¬
tics will be based not on racial, ethnic, or
cultural descent but on a collective consent
to mobilize around a collectively deter¬
mined ideology or program.

Mr. Obadele would have readers of this
correspondence that I, and by extension

the better. In today’s world, such a move¬
ment will inevitably be diverse and com¬
plex. The revolutionary challenge is to build
principled alliances among the many alien¬
ated, exploited and oppressed parts of a
society in order to fight for change. What is
the role of a revolutionary organization in
this kind of mass movement? Obviously, it
should not force the entire movement to
conform to its ideology or organs of power.
That’s why Love and Rage does not see
itself as the organization that will “lead" a
revolutionary movement. Instead, we aim to
help build such a movement and to partici¬
pate in it as equals with other organizations
and people. We have two goals: 1) to argue
for the most democratic and militant move¬
ment possible and 2) to encourage struggle
against all forms of oppression. These goals
are not in opposition to Black nationalism.
These goal do not preclude individual mem¬
bers of Love and Rage collectively from
defending ourselves against undue disre¬
spect or false accusations. Nor do these
goals prevent us from encouraging revolu¬
tionaries of different hue to join our orga¬
nization in particular. If Mr. Obadele insists
on implying that Love and Rage is even
remotely not in solidarity with the struggle
for Black liberation in the US, let it be
known now that such an accusation is a
fraud. However, if after reading this corre¬
spondence, anyone should come to the con¬
clusion that I, Matthew Quest, am opposed
to Mr. Obadele’s particular conception of
Black liberation, then I stand accused.

I as a man of color do not have the right
to hope in the white man there will be a
crystallization of guilt towards the past of
my race.,.There is no Negro mission; there
is no white burden,.,! have no wish to be
the victim of the Fraud of a black world.

— Frantz Fanon,
Black Skins, White Masks

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1995 • LOVE AND RAGE • PAGE 27

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^ ..

Alto a la Masacre!

^QR

RABIA

£r ^tc Nwmcro:

★ Oktjpas eR Nueva York
•k Intifada contra Arafat
ifc' Una critica anarquista
del MarJtJsmo (Parte V)
k iY MUCHO MASl

HEX

I

SeOUNDO ANIVeRSARiO

ALTO A LA MASACRE!

'4-

I ZAPATA VIVE ! SUPLEyENTO ESPECIAL DEL EZLN

ANO 2, NUMERO I

ENFRO/FEBRERO 19‘»5

A mor YRABIA ES UN PERI6DIC0 ANARQUISTA rev-
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